Raspberry Prices Double, Largely Due to Iran War

If your raspberries suddenly feel like a splurge, blame more than just the produce aisle. The price of fresh raspberries has roughly doubled since January, with a 6-ounce organic package recently going for nearly $8 at an Atlanta Whole Foods—about 20 cents a berry, the New York Times reports. The Iran war is a major new culprit: disrupted oil and gas flows have pushed US diesel prices up 35% in a month, quickly inflating costs for fuel-hungry, constantly refrigerated items like berries and pineapples, industry officials say.

The USDA, which in February expected food costs to rise about 3% this year, now warns grocery and restaurant bills could jump as much as 6.1%, with bread, cereal, and ground beef among the likely climbers. On Thursday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted that wider inflation in the US would top 4% this year. Alex Jacquez at the Groundwork Collaborative progressive policy group tells the Guardian that higher gas prices are "first-order effects" of the war, while the indirect "second-order effects" include higher prices for crops, tech components, and many other items.

• "It's just a matter of when they work their way through the supply chains," Jacquez says. "Maybe it's on next month's orders, or maybe next week's orders, or whatever it may be. But eventually some of these increases we've seen are going to get passed through, if they get large enough."

With berries and other produce, the conflict is landing on top of existing pressures: weaker US currency, higher insurance and labor costs, tariffs on imports, and climate-fueled weather extremes, the Times reports. "Raspberries are a really nice microcosm of several different economic layers threaded together that were in place before the conflict in Iran," says Chris Barrett, a professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University. The result: skimpy selection, erratic quality, and sticker shock. One shopper's current strategy: wait for sales—and skip raspberries when "the price is crazy."