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Higher fuel prices will mean higher food prices

STEVENS POINT, Wis. (AP) – When Jim Kawleski started driving a freight truck two decades ago, he paid about $500 a week for gas and tolls. He now spends that much in one day. Kawleski, owner-operator of RJ Transport in Junction City, drives once a week to Brownsville, Texas, to pick up cucumbers.

Professional truck drivers like him are paying record prices for diesel, which is now costing more than $4 a gallon across the country.

He said consumers will start to notice this soon. “The fuel prices get passed all the way down. Everyone will end up paying more at the grocery store,” Kawleski said. “It’s passing the buck, so to speak, which isn’t good. Everybody hurts.”

The American Automotive Association in Wisconsin reports the state’s most recent average price for diesel was $4.08 a gallon. That was up from an average of $3.49 in February. It’s also about $1.25 more per gallon at the same time last year.

About 80 percent of the goods consumed in the U.S. are shipped by truck. Diesel had usually been cheaper than unleaded gasoline, but about four years ago its price began to climb, shrinking profit margins. And demand is growing, especially in places like Europe and China.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, diesel is more expensive because it costs more to produce now that the U.S. switched to a low-sulfur blend. The federal excise tax is six cents more for diesel than on regular gasoline.