Breakfast price hikes might scramble your budget
(NewsNation Now) — The price of some of your favorite breakfast foods won’t go over-easy at brunch.
Breakfast foods are reaching a 10-year high thanks to supply chain woes and bad weather, according to the Financial Times.
Bacon is a whopping $1.71 more than it was pre-pandemic. A pound of coffee beans will tip the scale an extra dollar. And for just toast alone? An extra 17 cents.
Orange juice might squeeze your budget a little, with the Department of Agriculture predicting the smallest crop of oranges in Florida since 1945. The USDA forecasts that orange production will be down 16%, but at the same time the demand for orange juice continues to climb. Experts expect prices to climb and attribute the low crop to citrus greening, an incurable plant disease that causes oranges to become bitter and green.
And it’s not just the basics, prepared breakfast foods are also seeing a rise. General Mills, which makes Cheerios and Lucky Charms, is raising prices as much as 20%. Kraft-Heinz, the makers of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, is expected to add another price hike to breakfast.
Even breakfast bars like Belivta could become more expensive when owner Mondelez International raises prices later this month.
The hike in breakfast prices comes as U.S. inflation jumped at its fastest pace in nearly 40 years last month, a 7 percent spike from a year earlier. Shortages and higher prices at grocery stores continued to grow in recent weeks as the omicron variant and severe weather compounded supply-chain problems.