Coca-Cola Co.’s Minute Maid and Simply Orange brand orange juices sit on display in a supermarket in Princeton, Illinois.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Orange juice is the latest item to succumb to higher prices at the grocery store, with futures on the commodity good reaching an all-time high this week.
Future prices for the breakfast staple have been steadily climbing over the past few months, hitting a record high of $3.69 per pound Tuesday morning. That number is up 13% month to date and almost 78% year to date.
With the price hike, the juice joins other major grocery store items facing high prices even as inflation slows, including raw sugar and cocoa.
The drink’s price has shot up due to hurricanes and bad weather that slammed Florida — the main producer of orange juice for the U.S. — last year, which reduced the crop to its lowest level in nearly 80 years. A late freeze at the end of last year also devastated the crops.
In July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it expected Florida to produce just around 15.9 million boxes of oranges this year, down 70% from the 2020-21 season.
Other exporters such as Brazil and Mexico also lowered their estimated yields for the year, citing crop difficulties from warmer weather.