Money Listens

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture spends a lot of time on its publications. And a lot of my tax money. So, I like to see what my tax dollars are buying. Right up there with Real Simple and Sports Illustrated is Amber Waves. Get it? From the song–America, the Beautiful.

But my favorite is the every-other-month Vegetables and Melons Outlook. (I am not making this up.) Don’t you have a favorite section in a magazine you always turn to and read first? For me, it’s the “Commodity of the Month.” In the April, 2008 issue, potato chips were featured.

Even though it’s pretty much common sense, you like to know that the U.S.D.A. is confirming that retail prices for potato chips are considerably higher than other potato products (such as fresh potatoes or frozen french fries). Since 2000, retail prices for potato chips have averaged $3.41 per pound, while fresh and french fried potatoes have averaged $0.45 and $1.05 per pound. This is due to the high cost of the frying oil. Plus, a potato is roughly 80 percent water so it takes about 4 pounds of raw potatoes to manufacture 1 pound of potato chips.

Even with the higher cost, potato chip consumption in the United States has steadily increased over the past five decades from 11.4 pounds per person in 1960 to an estimated 19.3 pounds per person in 2007. An estimated 79 percent of potato chips are consumed at home.

So who’s eating all these chips? Conventional thought is lower income, less educated households are more likely to purchase potato chips. Not so. When breaking down income levels of chip consumers, 50 percent were middle income households (households with incomes between $30,000 and $69,999). Upper income ($70,000 and greater) and lower income (below $30,000) households each consumed 25 percent.

If you can figure out what any of this has to do with personal finance, leave me a comment. Maybe it’s something about how the federal government uses our tax dollars. But, personally, it’s very comforting to know that average Americans are staying at home eating lots of potato chips. It just seems so, — so American.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 4:30 am and is filed under Food and Stuff That Tastes Good. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.