Forecasting Meat Prices Using Consumer Expectations from the Food Demand Survey (FooDS)

We determine whether data from the Food Demand Survey are leading indicators of retail meat prices included in the Consumer Price Index. Accurate price forecasts allow retailers to formulate appropriate marketing strategies and justify strategic procurement decisions. Accurate price forecasts should also reduce asymmetric price information. This study relies on consumers’ selfreported expectations about whether prices will increase or decrease in the coming weeks. Results from maximum likelihood stepwise autoregressions indicate that survey-based price expectations are leading indicators for chicken wing prices and contain the same information as BLS ground beef, pork chop, and deli ham prices. Future researchers can use this information in combination with theories from the demand, price analysis, and machine learning literatures to construct more accurate price forecasting models.