Food Prices in New York in Biggest Leap in 14 Years
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
NY Times
Published: January 20, 2005

The Consumer Price Index for the New York region rose 3.8 percent as an overall average in 2004, the federal government said yesterday, as higher food prices and rising fuel costs drove the largest year-to-year increase in the index since 1990.

The figures showed that New Yorkers spent more money last year whipping together salads and slicing bananas into their cereal than the rest of the United States, as local prices for food showed the largest annual increase in 14 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food prices, especially for products bought in grocery stores, rose more in the New York region than anywhere else in the country. Since December 2003, the price for food in grocery stores in the New York metropolitan region rose 5.5 percent compared with 2.5 percent nationally.