PPI industry data for Supermarkets and other grocery stores, not seasonally adjusted

The Producer Price Index (PPI) Revision-Current Series indexes reflect price movements for the net output of producers organized according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The dataset is compatible with a wide assortment of NAICS-based economic time series including productivity, production, employment, wages, and earnings.

The PPI universe consists of the output of all industries in the goods-producing sectors of the U.S. economy — mining, manufacturing, agriculture, fishing, and forestry — as well as natural gas, electricity, construction, and goods competitive with those made in the producing sectors, such as waste and scrap materials. As of January 2011, the PPI program covered more than three-quarters of the service sector's output, publishing data for selected industries in wholesale and retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; finance and insurance; real estate brokering, rental, and leasing; professional, scientific, and technical services; administrative, support, and waste management services; health care and social assistance; and accommodation.

The commodity classification structure of the PPI organizes products by similarity of end use or material composition, regardless of whether the products are classified as primary or secondary in their industry of origin. This hierarchical structure starts with major commodity groupings (2-digit level), then subgroups (3-digit), product classes (4-digit), subproduct classes (5- and 6-digit), item groupings (7-digit), and individual items (8-, 9-, and 10-digit levels). Commodity-based SOP price indexes regroup commodities at the subproduct class (six-digit) level, according to the class of buyer and the amount of physical processing or assembling the products have undergone.

To the extent possible, prices used in constructing the indexes are the actual revenue or net transaction prices producers receive for sales of their outputs. Scientific (probability) sampling techniques are used to select reporting establishments, products, and transactions for all types and volumes of output. Coverage includes roughly 500 mining and manufacturing industries and approximately 150 services industries. BLS collects over 100,000 price quotations each month covering over 600 industries and over 6,000 products and product categories.

More than 4,000 commodity price indexes organized by product, service, and end use are available. Indexes by stage of processing (52 series) and by durability of product (8 series) are available back to 1947. Data are also available for 29 special commodity groupings. Seasonally adjusted data are available for about 360 commodity indexes. Observations are monthly in most cases. Annual averages are available for all series published each month of the year that are unadjusted for seasonality. All indexes are stored with one decimal place. Updates are made near the middle of the month following a given reference month. The majority of series discontinuations are done on a semiannual basis, with the release of January and July data.

References: BLS Handbook of Methods, Chapter 14, "Producer Prices", Online at http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch14.htm