Food Prices and the American Consumer: How the Marketplace is Responding to Food Costs and Inflation | March 15, 2024

Ricky Volpe received his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Davis in 2010. He then spent four years working as an economist at the USDA Economic Research Service in Washington DC. There he researched a variety of topics, including food price formation, competitiveness in the food industry, and the healthiness of grocery purchases in the U.S. Ricky was also responsible for forecasting retail food price inflation at the national level.

Now at Cal Poly, Ricky teaches courses on food retail and supply chain management, transportation and logistics, and data analysis. He also maintains an active research agenda using a variety of large data sets to study issues related to market structure, firm performance, food prices, consumers’ food choices, and health outcomes. He also works closely with industry leaders in food retailing, wholesaling, and distribution to facilitate collaboration on public-private partnerships, student internships, and scholarships.

Andrew S. Harig currently serves as Vice President, Tax, Trade, Sustainability & Policy Development.  In this position, he is responsible for lobbying Congress and the Administration on behalf of FMI’s members, with a primary focus on sustainability, agriculture, taxes, trade and pensions.

Prior to joining FMI, Harig was an associate trade advisor and speechwriter for the Senate Finance Committee under its Chairman, Max Baucus (D-MT).  From 1999-2001, he was the senior research associate for the Global Economic Policy Project at the New America Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank.

Harig holds a B.A. from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. from DePaul University in Chicago, IL.