The next time you're in a restaurant or grocery store you may get sticker shock.

That’s because the cost of food is going up, and quickly.

Henry Bobe of Henry Bobe's Trattoria Italiano said, “America's use to eating things cheap, and at least for a short period of time, we're going to see a drastic change in that.”

Food prices have been skyrocketing in the last year and have hit Bobe especially hard.

A 20-pound bag of dry pasta has gone up $6 in the last month, bad for an Italian restaurant using 50 pounds of pasta a day.
Bobe said, “Fortunately so far, we haven't passed that increase on to our customers.”

But don't expect that to last long. As fuel continues to rise, so do the costs of shipping and farming, which is being passed on to restaurants.

Bobe said, “We've seen many of our prices double. Some of them are seasonable, but the seasonality seems to have disappeared.”

It's not just restaurants feeling the pain, its grocery stores.

And it's not just food costs.

Some food is packaged in hard plastic, which is made with oil, which, of course, is going up.”

Wade Fulford, assistant manager of Gordon Food Service in Terre Haute, said, “The main things are the bigger vegetable oils and anything in a hard plastic container. That's where you see the most price increases.”

Just how much is the increase?

Since last January, eggs are up 35%, milk is up 17%, and poultry is up 8%.

Wheat really has people worried, especially carb-lovers, like Bobe's patrons.

Bobe said, “A bag of flour, we used to pay nine dollars for, we're currently paying $22 for.”

It's not just fuel and oil causing the hike.

The weak dollar makes it more expensive to import goods.

Farmers raising corn for ethanol, in lieu of other crops, has hurt too, along with other variables.

Fulford said, “Volatile weather, hurricanes in Florida, the beef recall in California have all driven up prices.”

So, next time you go out, you may just want to savor that sauce a little longer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says overall, food prices have been up about four percent, and they are predicted to keep going up this year.