Why We Pay More For Breakfast

Nudging breakfast prices higher, at $7.00 and more, a dozen eggs are increasingly expensive.

But it’s not just the eggs.

Breakfast Prices

Cereal

Our shrinkflation guru tells us that last summer, a box of Kellogg’s Bran Crunch became taller and thinner but contained close to 2 ounces fewer flakes:

Orange Juice

Frozen orange juice concentrate prices were in a steep climb:

And, suggesting even higher prices, the number of oranges will decrease:

Coffee

With devastated coffee crops in key regions like Brazil, supply was down and price up:

You can see that Maxwell House has less in a can:

Eating Out

So, with a homemade breakfast increasingly pricey, instead you eat out. In yesterday’s WSJ, one father reported that he paid $27 for what was usually a $20 meal at Waffle House. Shocked (his word), he paid a 50-cent surcharge for every egg in his son’s scrambled egg bowl and for each of his two over-easy eggs. At another chain the surcharge was 30 cents for each egg in a breakfast taco and French toast.

Fast Food

A fast food breakfast is not the solution either.

Rising faster than inflation since 2019, fast food breakfasts are up an average of 53% and 72% at Taco Bell and Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. For Jack in the Box, one reason could be that hash browns were up 149%, and 23% to 110% elsewhere:

Our Bottom Line: Inflation

We should emphasize that the problem is not inflation. At 2.9% from December 2023 to December 2024, the rate is approaching the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Still, while the inflation rate is down, prices are up. But they are ascending more slowly.

My sources and more: WSJ has been documenting rising food prices and pricier breakfasts also while the NY Times had the coffee story. In addition, our fast food prices came from MarketWatch and mouseprint.org documented shrinkflation.

Out featured image is from the American Banking Journal.