What you have to take into consideration when pricing any products is the amount of volume that store sells of that item and when the last time they had to place an order to replace the item. It really doesn't matter if it is food, gas or whatever. In a rising market, such as when wheat is at high prices causing flour and baked goods to increase, Wal-Mart may have to place orders and replace the flour many times in a week. Each time they purchase there may be a slight increase in price, where a grocery store with less volume may order and replace that product once a week.
Same thing applies to gas, when gas prices is on the rise, the high volume gas stations pumping 10,000 gallons a day will be getting a delivery every day and will be paying the current price with all of the daily increases.
Go down the street and find a station that does less volume and purchases once a week and price may be slightly lower. Example: About a year ago I wanted to purchase some electrical wire and copper had recently jumped up in price. I went to the local big chain box store and found the wire close to $2.00 per foot. I drove down the street about 1/2 mile to a small hardware store that carried the same size and brand name wire. Purchased it there for $1.30 per foot. They did not sell the volume of wire that the big box store sells and had not ordered in a while, so I was purchasing it at an old price. Later when they had to reorder the wire the price was up.
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