Climate change is already disrupting food supplies across the world, causing shortages and raising prices for consumers – here are six staples under threat.
For those who find it sexy, your morning mocha could be in trouble. Or if, like Elon Musk, you like to eat steak and eggs, but don’t have the wallet to match, your breakfast is also in jeopardy.
People like Musk have been trying to disassociate climate change from the food system, despite the latter accounting for a third of all global emissions – in fact, one recent study suggests it’s the leading cause of global warming.
You only have to look at the price of eggs, chocolate or coffee to know that food production adversely affects the planet, and climate change in turn is ravaging our food supply.
As inflation continues to hit consumers, making affordability a bigger concern than even health for many, food prices are set to continue rising in the near term. And if we don’t address factory farming and climate-harming agriculture, things are going to get progressively worse.
Here are six charts that illustrate as much.
Eggs
Egg prices are at an all-time high in the US – consumer price index (CPI) data by the Department of Labor shows that the average retail Grade A eggs cost $4.95 per dozen in January 2025, surpassing the previous high recorded in January 2023. In fact, in some places, Americans are paying more than a dollar per egg.
With bird flu leading to the culling of over 160 million birds, the Trump administration has pledged an additional $1B to stem the outbreak, on top of the $2B already spent. Despite that effort, the USDA predicts the cost of eggs to increase by another 41% in 2025, meaning eggs could cost as much as $7 per dozen based on the consumer price index.
This has necessitated the need for alternatives like plant-based liquid or powdered formats, or precision-fermented egg proteins. Think the vegan sunny-side-ups from Yo Egg, the recombinant EggWhite protein from The Every Company, or the pourable mung bean egg from Eat Just, whose sales grew five times faster this January than last.
Cocoa
Chocolate is sweet on the tastebuds but bitter on the planet, thanks to the industry’s high emissions (linked to deforestation) and water use. Climate change itself has also hurt cocoa crops, with global cocoa stocks dropping to their lowest levels in a decade.
Last year, human-caused climate change added six weeks of days above 32°C in over 70% of cacao-producing areas across Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria.
As a result, cocoa prices shot up by three- to fourfold in 2024, reaching all-time highs. In New York, cocoa futures reached an all-time high of $12,565 per tonne in mid-December, following weather-induced low supplies for the fourth successive season in West Africa, which produces the majority of the world’s cocoa.
These hikes meant cocoa surpassed the growth of every other commodity in the value chain in 2024 – and prices are likely to stay high this year. Low supplies and skyrocketing costs have had an impact on the bottom lines of chocolate giants like Hershey’s too, whose profit forecast for 2025 is below analysts’ expectations.
It’s a good time to look at alternative chocolate companies like Voyage Foods, Planet A Foods, Food Brewer, and Foreverland, which are futureproofing the industry with cocoa-free and cell-based versions.
Coffee
Coffee wasn’t far behind cocoa in its price hikes last year, becoming the second-largest gainer last year. With 60% of coffee species endangered and the area suitable for cultivating arabica shrinking, this should come as no surprise.
Extreme-weather-induced crop failures and shortages pushed up arabica prices by 80% last year, with wholesale prices reaching a nearly 50-year high. In February, coffee futures in New York hit an all-time high of $4.34 per pound – already this year, prices are up by 35%.
The severe drought in Brazil – the largest coffee producer – in 2024 is a major factor behind this rise, and this year too, the upcoming harvest is set to be 4.4% smaller, according to food supply agency Confab.
This is why several companies – from Atomo and Minus Coffee in the US to Prefer in Singapore – are making beanless coffee, positioned as a supplementary product to reduce the strain on conventional beans.
Beef
It is the most polluting food on the planet, and yet we eat too much of it. Governments across the world are advising citizens to eat less beef for the good of both the climate and their own health – but that argument can now be extended to their wallets too.
The cost of beef, both in retail and wholesale, already broke records in 2024, and it’s coming close to breaching those highs again. CPI data in the US shows that sirloin steak prices reached $12.01 per lb in November, and were at $11.97 in January. Likewise, ground beef cost $5.55 per lb in January, down from $5.67 in September.
According to the USDA, beef and veal prices rose by 5.5% in January compared to 12 months prior, and they’re expected to grow by another 3.2% in 2025. Prices of wholesale beef, meanwhile, jumped by 14.8%, and are set to rise by a further 4.6% this year.
Beef is more expensive now because of historically low levels of cattle inventories in the US, as well as a temporary import ban on cattle from Mexico (due to concerns over parasites). While the debate over ultra-processed food continues to make headlines, it marks a key opportunity for alternative beef makers like Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, Meati, Chunk Foods, and more.
Dairy
Dairy is another major food group that’s harmful to the planet and is being harmed itself by climate change. Prices of milk in the US reached a record-high of $4.22 per gallon in November 2022, and while they have decreased slightly since then, they were still at $4.05 in January this year, a 10% year-on-year increase.
Lower production levels in the US (a result of the bird flu) and New Zealand – the largest milk exporter – have also caused a hike in the cost of dairy products like butter. In the EU, butter was 19% more expensive in October 2024 than 12 months prior. Similarly, in the UK, government data shows that the price for a 250g tub of butter was 18% higher this January than at the start of 2024.
Back in the US, the Department of Agriculture predicts dairy prices to “remain nearly unchanged” this year, and noted that “rising prices for cheese and whey may have reflected falling stocks and increased global competition, as well as lower-than-expected milk production in the second half of [2024]”.
Class III milk, which is used to make cheese in the US, is expected to become slightly more expensive in 2025, and cheese prices are forecast to increase by 1%. The cost of whey, meanwhile, is set to approach the record labels seen in 2022 after a 36% hike last year.
It highlights the need for further investment and government support (via promotion and subsidies) for non-dairy milk producers, whether it’s companies like Oatly or Silk making oat, almond or soy milk, vegan cheese players like Violife and Stockeld Dreamery, or even whey proteins and products from fermentation startups like Perfect Day and Nature’s Fynd.
Fish
An industry marred by overfishing, microplastic pollution, and disease outbreaks, seafood hasn’t been spared by inflation either.
In the UK, an order of fish and chips cost £9.88 in July 2024, a 58% increase from July 2019. In Norway, fresh fish is 42% costlier than it was five years ago too. And fresh seafood prices rose by 2.2% in the US this January, driven by a hike of 5.1% in shellfish.
Meanwhile, Europeans are decreasing the amount of fish they put on their plates due to high prices. It’s perhaps best illustrated by data from the EU Commission: despite households spending 6% more on seafood in 2023, at-home fish consumption decreased in Europe that year, a trend it directly attributed to the “current economic and geopolitical climate”, and the ensuing inflation.
This has continued too, with the latest Eurobarometer survey – published last week – revealing that the number of Europeans who eat seafood at home at least once a month declined by six percentage points between spring 2021 and autumn 2024. There’s also a four-point decrease in the number of people who never eat fish (totalling 15%).
But it isn’t environmental or ethical concerns that drive these behaviours – it’s the markup. More than half (55%) of Europeans are deterred by the high prices of seafood. Again, this leaves a gap that can be filled by fish-free seafood startups like Revo Foods and Oshi, which are less polluting, don’t contribute to declining fish stocks, and can offer a stable supply – as long as policymakers support them with the investment they need.
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