This thread gives me ‘get off my lawn’ vibes now.
It’s my understanding that this outbreak is associated with a small, Florida farm . They claim that they were in compliance with FDA rules and standard farming practices by using untreated water on subsoil, rather than on edible parts of the plants. This untreated water is believed to be the source of salmonella. I have no idea whether their statements are true or not, but I would not assume the salmonella contamination was due to inflation.
I’m not aware of a connection between salmonella and inflation. Looking at historical numbers I see little correlation – peak salmonella incidents occurred in 2018 (low inflation). Min incidents occurred in 2022 (relatively high inflation). The recent July 2024 inflation report lists only a 1% year over year inflation on food at home and 3% inflation rate overall, so the cucumber incident does not appear to have occurred in period of especially high inflation. Instead it looks like inflation and salmonella outbreaks primarily depend on different things.
Relatively high inflation also doesn’t necessarily mean manufacturers and suppliers are struggling to keep costs down more than during periods of low inflation and/or more focused on cutting corners. High inflation instead means that manufacturers and suppliers as a whole are increasing costs over previous years, but the reasons for that price increase may vary . They could be directly passing their increased operating/purchasing costs on to consumers. They could be using an inflation as an excuse to increase prices by as much as the new inflation-expecting market will support (greedflation). Or they could be trying to keep prices as low as possible and increasing only what they need to stay afloat.
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