LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Consumer Price Index increased 3.4% over a 12 month ending last month. Simply put, the cost of living is going up.

What You Need To Know

  • The cost of living jumped 3.4% in the past year

  •  Small business owners, like Marie Wernz, are feeling the sting of higher prices

  •  Wernz's business, Kentucky Kettleheadz, has had to raise prices for customers because prices for its products have gone up.

Marie Wernz is restocking and reorganizing pork rinds and kettle corn—staples of her company Kentucky Kettle.

“We sell fresh pork rinds, so we make everything ourselves... and we do kettle corn with multiple flavors right out of a kettle,” Wernz says. 

The Brandenburg-based company has been serving customers for about 11 years. But, Wernz says inflation has caused her to get less bang for her buck.

“About two years ago, we would pay X amount of dollars for 60 pounds of pork rinds. Well, we still pay X amount of dollars the same price, but we have 45 pounds in a box now. So we lost 15 pounds. So when you multiply that, we lose about 100 to 150 bags per box of pork rinds. And you multiply that by $5 or $7. That’s how much money we lose per box.”

From April 2023 until April 2024, the CPI for food increased 2.2%. Wernz says she didn’t want to raise her products’ prices, but she had to make a difficult decision.

“Either we have to increase the prices or we can no longer do this because we couldn’t afford it, you know. So we did raise our prices. And I really felt I didn’t want to do it, but we went ahead and did it,” she said.

But the effects seem to expand beyond the Kentucky. Kody Halcomb sells food and home products at or below “cost” around the Midwest. 

“It’s dangerously hard to find product right now. The prices in the store, I mean, compare it to a shampoo product that’s going up 50%,” Halcomb, the owner of D&S Trading Corp, said. 

Though her prices have increased, Wernz says her customers keep coming back.

“My customers have been very understanding. They understand that everything has gone up and they’ve been very patient with it and they’re okay with it.”

Wernz says the increase in price of supplies has not had to change how she makes her products. The Congressional Budget Office , a nonpartisan analysis for the U.S. Congress, forecasts CPI to increase 2.2% in the coming months compared to the previous quarter.

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