Walk into most grocery stores today and the shelves look reasonably well-stocked. Prices, though, are a different story entirely. Over the past few years, a combination of drought, disease, aging infrastructure, and global supply chain fragility has put enormous pressure on some of the most common items in the American pantry. Chefs and professional kitchens are feeling this pressure more acutely than anyone, because they buy in volume and need consistency. From Mediterranean olive groves to West African cocoa farms, the ingredients that once arrived reliably are now a source of real anxiety in the culinary world.
1. Olive Oil
The price of olive oil shot up over the last two years, with figures from market insight firm Y Charts reporting a record high of 10,281 USD per metric tonne in January 2024. The story behind that number starts in Spain, the world’s dominant supplier. Spain meets between 40 and 46 percent of world demand in any given year, but Spanish production fell to as low as 666,000 metric tons during the 2022/2023 campaign – a 51 percent decrease directly tied to global climate change.
While Spain began recovering from drought, Italy faced similar challenges. Southern regions encountered high levels of heat and drought, leading to decreased olive production in key growing areas, with total production for the 2024 harvest projected to drop by one third. Puglia, Italy’s top olive oil-producing region, was hit especially hard – and given that Italy is a leading exporter and the third-largest consumer globally, these production challenges carry significant international repercussions. The Guardian documented how price hikes made olive oil the most stolen supermarket product in 2024.
2. Eggs
Behind the rising egg prices and shortages is a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza known as H5N1, which killed 13.2 million commercial egg-laying hens in December 2024 alone. As the spread of bird flu forced U.S. poultry farmers to cull more than 150 million chickens to contain the virus, retail egg prices soared as high as $9 a dozen and supply shortages left many grocery stores running out between shipments. For restaurants and professional kitchens, this was an operational crisis, not just a budget problem.
Retail egg prices rose more than 60 percent since March 2024, reaching $6.23 for a dozen large Grade A eggs in March 2025, the highest price ever recorded according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A March 2025 KFF poll found that nearly 90 percent of adults in the United States were concerned that the bird flu would increase food costs, and more than one third of Americans said they had stopped buying eggs that year because of high prices. In response to dwindling supply and escalating prices, several major grocery chains implemented purchase limits, with Whole Foods restricting customers to three cartons per purchase and Trader Joe’s setting a limit of one dozen eggs per customer per day.
3. Cocoa
Global cocoa production fell by 14 percent in the 2023–24 season, as output slowed in both Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, where at least 60 percent of the world’s cocoa is produced. In December 2024, cocoa prices hit record highs, surging by 30 percent for the month, while cocoa futures traded on Wall Street nearly tripled over the course of the full year. Pastry chefs and chocolatiers who rely on premium couverture chocolate found themselves in genuinely uncharted territory.
In 2026, cocoa is not scarce in the way it was during peak disruption. However, it is structurally more expensive, more volatile, and less predictable than it was for most of the last decade. For cafés, bakeries, and food businesses, this is no longer a temporary sourcing issue – it is a systems test. A 2021 study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that West Africa, the world’s largest cocoa-producing region, could see a 30 to 40 percent decline in suitable cocoa-growing areas by 2050, stemming from rising temperatures and altered rainfall patterns that also increase the prevalence of pests and diseases.
4. Coffee
In January 2025, Arabica coffee prices hit $3.48 per pound on the Intercontinental Exchange, a 79 percent increase from the previous year. Robusta coffee, often used in espresso blends, surged to its highest price in nearly five decades. These increases sent shockwaves through the industry, forcing many retailers to rethink their business models to survive in an increasingly volatile market. For chefs who depend on consistent coffee service or use coffee as a culinary ingredient, sourcing predictability nearly vanished overnight.
Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, experienced its most severe drought in 70 years, leading to water shortages and crop failures. Similarly, Vietnam faced a devastating drought followed by severe flooding, significantly impacting its coffee production. The global supply chain was strained further by logistical challenges, including a shortage of 20-foot dry containers essential for shipping coffee beans. JDE Peet’s, one of the world’s largest coffee companies, described 2025’s green coffee inflation as “unprecedented.”
5. Rice
Domestically, U.S. rice production faces ongoing strain from drought conditions in California and Arkansas, two of the country’s primary rice-producing regions. Internationally, prices hit 15-year highs in mid-2024 after El Niño reduced harvests across Asia and India imposed export restrictions, tightening global supply significantly. Chefs specializing in Asian cuisines, risotto, or grain-forward dishes have found that sourcing specific rice varieties, especially premium or single-origin varieties, has become considerably more difficult.
Rice, a primary food source for more than half of the global population, faces threats from changing climate patterns. Projections indicate that countries like Vietnam and Thailand could experience a 10 percent and 14 percent drop in rice production respectively by 2026 compared to 2018 levels. As of June 2024, 16 countries had implemented 22 food export bans and 8 had implemented 15 export-limiting measures in major food commodities including wheat, soybean, rice, sugar, and vegetable oils, while food inflation increased between 5 and 30 percent or more in most low- and middle-income countries.
6. Wheat and Flour
The war in Ukraine disrupted almost a third of the world’s wheat market. That single disruption cascaded through professional kitchens worldwide, hitting bread programs, pasta production, and pastry departments particularly hard. Extreme weather events, including heatwaves and droughts, have led to significant yield reductions in key wheat-producing regions. The 2024 heatwave in the Southern Cone, affecting Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and southern Brazil, resulted in substantial declines in wheat production. Such climatic challenges not only diminish current yields but also threaten the stability of future wheat supplies, potentially leading to higher prices and food insecurity.
Droughts impacting wheat varieties continue to pose challenges for wheat product production, with independent grocers and food service operators anticipating potential shortages in products like pasta, bread, and baked goods. Geopolitical tensions, climate change, and extreme weather are collectively tilting global food security into a high-risk state, due to the vulnerability of staple food production, supply, and the lack of adequate substitutes. Chefs running high-volume bread and pasta programs have already begun diversifying their flour suppliers and sourcing from additional regions as a buffer against ongoing instability in the global grain market.
