Why do fruit prices change so drastically from one week to the next?

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Listener Matthew Clark from Pittsburgh asks:

Why do fruit prices change in such large increments? For example, grapes may be 99 cents a pound one week and then go up to $2.99 a pound the next week, which is a massive percentage change in a short period of time.

Getting a good deal on fruit is all about the right timing. 

Vegetables and fruits fluctuate more in price compared to every other item in the supermarket, said Ricky Volpe, a professor of agribusiness at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. However, they don’t change as often as wholesale prices, Volpe noted. 

Factors like seasonality, weather conditions, disease, retail margins, marketing strategies, and trade policy can impact fruit prices, experts told Marketplace.  

The U.S. has to import fresh fruits from other countries in order to meet consumer demand year-round, said David Ortega, a food economist and professor at Michigan State University. The U.S. imports about 60% of all fresh fruit from other countries, he noted. 

When it comes to grapes, the U.S. heavily imports them from Chile, Peru and Mexico. If those countries are experiencing a good harvest, that’ll lead to higher supply, lowering prices, Ortega said. 

But bad weather conditions, like droughts and hurricanes, will hamper supply, leading to higher prices. In 2022, a mega drought reduced the supply of tomatoes in California.

Other forces outside of a farmer’s control, like crop diseases, can also raise fruit costs. Hurricane Irma and a disease known as citrus greening devastated Florida’s orange crops in 2018.

A retailer might also have to pay more for transportation expenses all of a sudden because there’s a constraint on refrigerated carrying capacity, Volpe said. 

Or, sometimes, a retailer has been keeping prices low for as long as they can, and one day, they realize they have to hike the price because they’ve been losing money for too long, Volpe said. 

There are also grocery stores that offer competitive prices as a marketing strategy to attract customers, Volpe said. 

“Then, when a retailer decides to put an end to that, the price returns to normal,” Volpe said. 

Not all fruit prices vary wildly, though. Bananas remain a consistent and popular loss leader for retailers. On average, a pound of bananas has cost around 60 cents since 2021. Others, like avocados, remain consistently pricey, and that’s because consumers are willing to buy avocados at all stages of their lifespan and retailers can use older avocados in products as they’re nearing the end of their shelf life. 

Trade policy also influences produce prices. The Trump administration is set to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico next week, which could also increase your grocery bill. Tariffs are a tax that importers have to pay, so they’ll either pass the cost onto customers or absorb some of that cost, Ortega said. 

Even the threat of tariffs can cause prices to fluctuate. “If importers are rushing to bring in as much product as they can before the tariffs take effect, then you might end up with a glut in the supply of some of these food items, which may suppress prices short term,” Ortega said. 

But when the tariffs kick in, prices may increase, Ortega said.