U.S. producer prices recently posted an increase in April, the largest in one and a half years, according to the U.S. Labor Department. The surge in food prices is seen as a potential sign of possible inflation in the near future. 

Last Wednesday, the Labor Department said that its producer price index rose 0.6 percent, which is the biggest increase since September 2012.  

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The Labor Department revamped its Producer Price Index series when the year started in order to include the service and construction sectors. Since the revamp, the index became more volatile because of the big swings in the prices for trade services. 

Economists who expected only a 0.2 percent gain saw this latest rise in prices as an indication of a possible looming inflation. For a long time, Federal Reserve authorities worried that inflation was too low. 

According to John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York, they think that a number of policymakers at the Federal Reserve and many market participants are too complacent on inflation's outlook. 

"We are not sounding an inflation alarm, but ... concerns about deflation or too low of an inflation rate seem quite misplaced at this point," Ryding said in a Reuters report. 

The prices received by farms, factories and refineries have moved forward to 2.1 percent since the last 12 months and culminated in April of this year. The price increase is so far the biggest gain for producers since March 2012. 

Amid the increase toward inflation at wholesale, the overall U.S. inflation remains harmless because of the underperforming labor market. The previous recession made wage growth lackluster and producers can't pass the price increases to consumers.

The U.S. central bank keeps its monetary policy loose in response to the low inflation the country has been experiencing. Although it has been limiting the amount of money it is producing, no one is expecting that it will raise the interest rates overnight.

TagsU.S. Inflation, Producer Price Index, U.S. Labor Department, Federal Reserve