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When Did Breakfast Get So Damn Expensive?

When Did Breakfast Get So Damn Expensive?

Food price inflation is a chain reaction. So, why does it happen?

June 15, 2025

In 2020, a dozen eggs cost $1.50. This March, that same carton hit $6.20. In April, it dropped to $5. By May, it was $4.50 — still triple the price from just a few years ago.

Even omelets aren’t safe, the median restaurant price hit $14.71.

Standing in the checkout line, it's easy to think the store is just gouging you for extra profit.

Plot twist: They're not.

What you're experiencing is food price inflation—a chain reaction that started months ago in places you've never been, affecting industries you've never thought about. It's like a Rube Goldberg machine made of wheat futures, diesel trucks, and unexpected storms.

A Rube Goldberg machine. This is kind of how our food system works

Today, we’re tracing your rising grocery bill back to the source — and breaking down what’s really driving food inflation.

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The 3-Stage Journey of Food Inflation

To understand why prices are rising, let's follow your food through its journey from the farm to your plate.

At each stage, new costs pile on. And when prices spike upstream, they cascade all the way to your grocery receipt.

Stage 1: The Farm (Where Your Food's Price Tag Begins)

Before your food even exists, farmers are already paying inflated prices for everything they need.

Inputs are up. Margins are down. And every dollar they spend eventually makes its way to your plate.

When global supply chains hiccup, basic building blocks—like seed and feed—get scarce and expensive.

Fertilizer? That’s where natural gas becomes your problem. Most fertilizers are made using natural gas. When prices spiked 300% in early 2022, farmers felt it first.

A lot of them probably looked at the numbers and thought: "Well, there goes my profit margin."

Fuel? Tractors don’t run on vibes. When oil prices jump, so does the cost of planting, harvesting, hauling, and irrigating. Farming runs on diesel—and diesel ain’t cheap.

Weather? It's not just inconvenient. It's catastrophic. A 2023 drought in the Midwest wiped out 30% of the corn crop.

Less corn. Less feed. Less meat. Less everything. Basic economics tells us: less supply + same demand = higher prices.

Labor? Seasonal workers are harder to find and more expensive to hire.
Many farmers are paying 20–30% more for help than just a few years ago—and still struggling to get enough hands in the field.

A Kansas wheat farmer may have seen his input costs rise 40% in 2022 while wheat prices only may have increased 25%. He's making less money per bushel while you're paying more for bread. That's the squeeze hitting everyone.

Stage 2: Processing & Packaging (Where Raw Becomes Retail-Ready)

Here is where wheat becomes flour, milk becomes cheese, and cattle become burgers.

These plants are energy monsters. They cook, freeze, package, and sterilize everything—using a ton of electricity and natural gas.

So when energy prices go up?

Processing costs spike.

And is not just energy.

Everything that touches your food has gotten pricier:

Plastic wrap, packaging, cardboard boxes
Machinery parts stuck on boats halfway across the world
Cleaning chemicals and food-grade coatings

And don’t forget about people.

Processing plants rely on thousands of workers. With labor shortages and rising wages, it’s costing more to staff every shift—and keep production moving.

Once it’s packed and ready? Your food still needs to move.

It rides in refrigerated trucks across the country—burning diesel, driven by people who also need to get paid.

Every mile adds cost. Every handoff adds friction. Every delay adds risk

The domino effect

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, wheat futures spiked 40% in a single day.

But that price shock didn’t hit your grocery store overnight.

It had to ripple through:

Farmers planting next season’s crop
Processors buying new inputs at higher prices
Truckers hauling finished goods
Retailers recalculating shelf prices

Months later, you felt it at the register—as $4.99 bread might have become $6.29.

That’s the domino effect. And once it starts, it doesn’t stop quickly.

Stage 3: Distribution & Retail (The Final Mile)

Your food’s almost home. But before it hits your cart—or your plate—it passes through one last price gate.

Grocery stores don’t just sell food. They pay for:

Rent on prime retail space
Electricity for all those fridges and freezers
Storage, shrinkage, and spoiled goods
Wages for cashiers, stockers, managers, and security

Running a supermarket isn’t cheap—especially when utility bills spike and payroll costs rise.

Then there's transportation (again).

Even the short trip from distribution center to store racks up costs. Fuel, insurance, maintenance, tolls—it all adds up.

Restaurants? They’re feeling it even worse.

They pay the same inflated prices for ingredients you do—plus more for staff, rent, and regulations.

Between 2022 and 2023, restaurant food costs rose 15–20%.

Labor costs followed. And now? Your go-to burger spot may charge $18 instead of $14—and they may be still barely breaking even.

Now, finally, the food is in your home—carrying the price tag of everything it passed through.

What's Making Food Prices So High Right Now?

It’s not one problem—it’s a pile-up.

🌪️ Extreme weather is wrecking harvests from California to Brazil.
⛽ High energy costs make it expensive to grow, move, and store food.
👥 Labor shortages mean higher wages at every link in the chain.
🌍 Global shocks—like war in Ukraine—disrupt key exports like wheat.
🐔 Specific shocks like bird flu wiped out over 30 million laying hens in early 2025.

Inflation doesn’t come from one source. It snowballs.

How food inflation is tracked

When we say “food prices are up,” what does that actually mean—and how do we measure it?

There are two major ways we track food inflation: globally and locally.

1. Globally: The FAO Food Price Index

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) doesn’t care what you paid for eggs at your grocery store.

They track what countries and companies pay for food in bulk on the global market—wheat, corn, meat, dairy, sugar, oils. The building blocks of the food system.

Every month, they collect export prices from around the world, average them out, and turn that into a single number: the Food Price Index.

We can think of it like the world’s wholesale receipt. If that number goes up, the raw ingredients of the food system just got more expensive—everywhere.

2. Your wallet: Consumer Price Index(CPI)

In the U.S. and many other countries, the government tracks the Consumer Price Index(CPI) to measure how much people are actually paying for goods and services over time. Food is one part of that.

To track CPI food prices, data collectors literally go out and record the price of thousands of items—milk, cereal, ground beef, bananas—in stores across the country and compare them to past prices.

It’s the official version of your grocery bill, measured over time.

When the CPI goes up, it means your dollar buys less food than it used to. Simple as that.

So, what do the numbers say?

Globally:
The FAO Food Price Index peaked at 159.3 points in March 2022—the highest since tracking began in 1990. As of May 2025, it’s around 127.7 points.

That’s a drop from the peak, but still about 25% higher than before the pandemic. In other words: food is still expensive at the global source.

FAO Food Price Index

In your wallet:
CPI data shows U.S. food prices rose about 25% from 2020 to 2024.
What used to cost $100 now costs $125.
For a family spending $150 a week on groceries, that’s an extra $37.50 every week.

Who Gets Hit Hardest

Food inflation doesn’t hit everyone equally.

For low-income families, food isn’t just another expense—it’s the biggest one. They spend up to 40% of their income on food, compared to just 10–15% for higher earners.
So when prices rise 25%, it’s not only inconvenient—it can be devastating.

And farmers? They’re stuck at the front of the line—paying more for everything (seeds, diesel, fertilizer) while waiting months to see if their selling price will catch up.
Most years, it doesn’t.

Meanwhile, everyone else is adjusting:

Buying store brands
Planning meals more carefully
Shopping at discount grocers
Wasting less, stretching more

Why food prices aren’t just about food

When your grocery bill goes up, it feels personal—and it is. But it’s also a signal. A symptom. A crack in the bigger system.

Food inflation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s connected to:

A war in Ukraine choking off grain exports.
Oil prices driving up the cost of diesel for tractors and trucks.
Weather wrecking harvests across continents.

This isn’t just about sticker shock. It’s about system shock.

That $6 gallon of milk in Kansas last year?

It’s carrying the weight of geopolitics, fuel prices, labor shortages, and global trade routes.

Understanding how this all fits together won’t make your groceries cheaper.

But it will make you sharper. More informed. Less likely to fall for finger-pointing and political soundbites.

Because when you see the full chain, you stop blaming the cashier—and start asking the right questions.

And that’s how smarter conversations—and better solutions—begin.

Did this help you understand food inflation better? Forward this to someone who's been complaining about grocery prices. They'll thank you for the clarity.