Inflation Poses PR Challenge for Food Industry

(MoneyWatch)  Whenever oil prices spike, energy companies like Exxon come in for even more criticism than usual. The public is generally a bit more forgiving of food companies ?€" that is, up to a point. With the government reporting that food inflation is as bad as it has been in nearly two decades, we may be reaching that point now. Some analysts expect that Wednesday's Consumer Price Index report from the Labor Department will show that inflation is even worse than what's been reported so far.

It will be interesting to see whether food producers -- not to mention grocers and restaurateurs -- will be better than oil companies generally are at explaining that the rise in prices is largely out of their control, and that they are victims, too.

During the rampant inflation of the early 1970's, most people didn't think of food producers as evil. But back then, as now, they surely thought oil companies were. Oil companies befoul the environment and destroy aquatic ecosystems with spillage from their tankers. They do business with corrupt foreign governments. Windfall profits tax? You bet!

But over the past few decades, the food industry has lost much of its innocent sheen (which was never really deserved, but still). Now the attitude is: Food companies clog our arteries, make our children fat, and fill our meals with unpronounceable ingredients that may well be poisoning us. They experiment on us with genetically altered crops and hormone-stuffed milk and meat. And they wreck the environment with harsh chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and diesel-sucking farm machinery.

Fair or not, that's the attitude. Adding higher prices to that mix will bring no love to the food industry. That is, unless producers and vendors effectively explain to consumers that inflation isn't their fault.