12 Foods That Could Get More Expensive In 2023

One need not look too far to have noticed the eye-watering price hikes across grocery store aisles. From everyday staples like eggs, bread, and butter, to pantry treat favorites like chocolate chip cookies, food has gotten astronomically more expensive over the past few years. A global pandemic has created plenty of strain on supply chain operations across the globe, while inflation has led to everyone having to reconsider how far their budgets can stretch.

There are other factors that have had an effect on the food prices that consumers are currently contending with, ranging from animal disease outbreaks and labor shortages across various industries to natural disasters like droughts and floods. As such, price hikes within the food industry are merely a symptom of several ills within the global market. Which foods will only continue to get more expensive in 2023, and which will offer some reprieve? Here's a list.

Without milk, there can be no butter. As such, one cannot explore the increase in butter prices without looking at the dairy industry as a whole. While a pound of butter may have cost you an average of $3.67 in January 2022, by September 2022, consumers were forking out up to $4.70, per CNBC. This was because overall, dairy production costs increased drastically. Further, the higher the weather temperatures rise, the less milk cows are able to produce, which results in less milk for farmers, which in turn means fewer supplies to make butter.

Additionally, according to CBS News, following the financial strains that came with Covid-19, many farmers within the cattle industry also took matters into their hands and "thinned" their herds. Of the milk supplies that have been available, it seems more have been siphoned toward the production of cheese rather than butter. This has further contributed to lower supplies in comparison to demand. It seems there will not be much reprieve during 2023, as temperatures are predicted to remain higher than what is optimal — particularly during the season when milking is most expected.

Whether you like it fresh or as a mimosa over brunch, another crop that has gotten – and is expected to get progressively more expensive in 2023 — is oranges. This, in turn, has heightened orange juice prices. Florida has especially felt the pinch where this is concerned. In 2022, the state yielded the fewest orange crops it has seen since 1944. This is significant, given that the state usually supplies about 80% of all oranges that are used for the production of orange juice across the U.S. Prior to that, farmers in Florida had already been battling with citrus greening – a bacteria that attacks the fruit – for about 25 years. Moreover, the devastation of Hurricane Irma's impact has continued to reverberate through crop life since 2017.

In 2022 alone, there were multiple natural disasters that contributed to the abovementioned decrease in orange crops. Among these were Hurricanes Ian and Nicole, as well as the January freeze. Unfortunately, the nature of orange farming does not allow much leeway to swiftly recover from such setbacks. This is because orange trees usually only produce fruit after three years, and go on to bring in profit at the six- to nine-year mark. As such, an increase in prices now may only really just be the start of a new normal where this crop is concerned.

An easy deli staple to throw on a sandwich during the rush of a day, ham is another item that has recently skyrocketed in price over the past couple of years. While a pound of it may have set you back about $4.07 in 2019, by 2022, the price of a pound had gone up to $5.29. That is a whopping 30% increase over the span of just three years. Apart from inflation, price increases for most other items on this list come down to weather conditions and animal disease. This is not necessarily the case for ham.

Given that meat production relies on skilled employees – for instance, knife technicians to cut it off the bone – the production of ham has deteriorated as a result of labor shortages. According to Bloomberg, as more and more employees became absent due to Covid-related illnesses, production slowed down and thus tipped the demand versus supply pendulum. This, in turn, had an impact on the price of ham. Nevertheless, employees returning to work may not automatically mean lower ham prices, as inflation remains a factor.

A primary ingredient in other forms of comforting baked goods, flour has also not been able to escape price hikes. According to The San Francisco Standard, 2022 brought along with it a 20% hike in flour prices. For bakery business owners who bought their supply in bulk, a 50-pound bag that cost $50 in 2021 had gone up to $67 within the span of a year. For the everyday consumer, retail price increases of various flours including premixes had gone up 22.7%.

While consumers may be able to forgo baked goods that are generally regarded as more of a treat or luxury, bread remains a staple food that most people consume on a daily basis. With the price of flour on the rise, market strategist Todd "Bubba" Horwitz has predicted that the price of a loaf of bread could hike up to $10 during 2023. Should this be the case, it seems even a simple sandwich could start to feel like a luxury for consumers across the U.S.

Every key ingredient needed to bake chocolate chip cookies — and to make them perfectly crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside — has increased in price, so it is no wonder then that the price of America's favorite cookies has surged so much. Never mind how much more expensive basic staples have become; increasing chocolate chip cookie prices are just disheartening. While the average a consumer could expect to pay for a pound of chocolate chip cookies was $3.49 in 2019, the price surged to $4.34 in 2022. Because the U.S. had a steady supply of cocoa during 2020, it may have mediated rising costs of other cookie staples, as there was only a $0.21 price increase during 2021.

However, the sharper increase came in 2022. On the one hand, U.S. cocoa supplies decreased by 20% while the demand increased, per the New York Post. On the other hand, lower cocoa crop yields in countries like Ghana resulted in price surges for this key chocolate ingredient. Further, global holidays like Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter are practically synonymous with chocolate, and with these massive surges in demand come even more price hikes.

Rice is the most consumed grain across the globe, and it seems the market may experience the worst rice shortage it has had in 20 years. Per USA Today, rice crop yields were affected by weather conditions in 2022. Among these were the flash floods in parts of China – where most of the world's rice supply is produced. While some regions had flash floods, others were devastated by severe droughts, while the rice crops in Pakistan were compromised by flooding. Given how widely-consumed rice is, with lower supplies, the demand is sure to be severely compromised.

According to CNBC, the shortfall is predicted to amount to 8.7 million metric tons. However, unlike most other items on this list that will only continue to increase in price, the current deficit is reportedly only temporary. Fitch Solutions has predicted that the global rice market may return to a state of surplus between 2024 and 2025, and with that, a decrease in prices. This is, of course, contingent on the weather conditions in the regions that produce most of the world's rice.

Static Media owns and operates Mashed and Tasting Table.