Today in Biofuels Opinion: General Mills CEO says food inflation caused by “a little bit of this…a little bit of that”

Republican congressional candidate Grant Bosse: “Our current ethanol policy drives up gas prices, drives up food prices, hurts the environment, and taxpayers get to pay $6.3 billion a year for the privilege. It’s time to end the ethanol boondoggle once and for all.” Bosse named the ethanol subsidy as the first of his 50 Ways in 50 Days to reduce federal spending.

Ken Powell, chairman and chief executive officer, General Mills: “We began to see inflation input costs really at the beginning of this decade. And it was a little bit of this, it was a little bit of that. One year it was corn, one year it was oil, one year it was packaging, but the trend was that the general inflationary pressure that we were seeing. We see the fundamental cause as growth in global demand, for all commodities, really, food grains, energy metals — you name it.  Nobody predicted $140 oil, nobody predicted the corn issues in the Midwest this year — for a variety of issues it spiked this year, but we think we will be able to mostly manage it.”

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