Homemade Hamburger Costs Increase This Summer Over 2018

(WASHINGTON, DC) If your afternoon picnic includes cheeseburgers, they will be a bit pricier than last year’s burgers. In May, the ingredients for a home-prepared quarter-pound cheeseburger totaled $1.75 per burger, with ground beef making up the largest cost at 96 cents and cheddar cheese accounting for 33 cents. This same cheeseburger cost $1.67 to prepare last May, an increase of almost five percent. Retail prices for one pound quantities of all of the ingredients, with the exception of bread, were higher in May compared 2018. Higher ground beef prices accounted for half of the eight-cent increase, and cheddar cheese costs were one cent more per burger this year. Iceberg lettuce had the highest year on year increase, 14.5 percent, while tomato prices increase almost nine percent, but added just three cents to the total cost of a home-cooked burger.