Missouri shoppers will, on average, pay less than the national average for some of summer’s cookout favorites. Diane Olsen with the Missouri Farm Bureau says the organization’s annual Marketbasket Survey includes prices for cheeseburgers, hot dogs and some fixings, pork spare ribs, deli potato salad, corn chips, baked beans, watermelon, lemonade and chocolate milk.

Missouri beats national average for popular summer cookout food prices

“Due to the commodity prices being stable over the last year, we’ve seen a modest decline in most of the prices for the items we would be serving,” says Olsen.

She says there’s especially competition at the meat counter.

“Because we’re slaughtering more cattle and we have a large supply of pork for domestic consumption, we’re finding that the competition at the meat counter is driving those prices down,” says Olsen. “The availability is there.”

Of its sixteen typical summer cookout items surveyed, the only ones in Missouri not lower than the national average are ground round and chocolate milk.

“Ground round was actually slightly higher in Missouri than the national average for the two pounds that we consumed but the spare ribs were significantly lower than the national average, as were the hotdogs,” says Olsen.

Olsen does not know why ground round and chocolate milk are higher in Missouri.