How does the BLS collect meat price data?
Meat prices are included in the information that the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects for development of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI represents all goods and services purchased for consumption. BLS has classified expenditure items into more than 200 categories, arranged into eight major groups. Food and beverages items such as breakfast cereal, milk, coffee, chicken, wine, full-service meals, and snacks are in one major group. For each of the more than 200 categories, BLS has chosen samples of items to represent the thousands of varieties available in the marketplace. For example, in a given supermarket, the Bureau may choose a plastic bag of golden delicious apples, U.S. extra fancy grade, weighing 4.4 pounds to represent the “apples” category. Each month, BLS data collectors visit or call thousands of retail stores all over the United States to obtain price information on thousands of items used to track and measure price changes in the CPI. These prices represent a sc
