For the past couple of years, the headline on food prices has carried a note of relief: the worst is behind us, inflation has cooled. Consumers have never quite believed it, and lately the numbers have stopped cooperating too. The reassurance was always partly an illusion. Lower inflation does not lower prices. It only slows how fast they rise, a distinction that offers little comfort in the produce aisle. And even that slowdown has stalled. After dropping sharply from its peak, food inflation has crept higher again, and grocery prices have continued to climb in 2026.
The data bear this out. Grocery inflation peaked above 13% in the summer of 2022, its fastest pace in four decades, then fell to under 1% in the summer of 2024. Since then, it has reversed course, with the government now projecting food prices to climb more than 3% this year. Beneath the monthly swings sits the number consumers feel most: food today costs more than 30% than at the start of the decade. That cumulative impact is what shoppers feel at the checkout and what’s changing behavior. Many are trading down, leaning on store brands, and rethinking which produce items seem like a necessity and which feel like a splurge — often berries, salad kits, and avocados.
The past six years offer a ready explanation for how we got here. A pandemic snarled supply chains. War in Ukraine sent grain and fertilizer markets reeling. Drought tightened harvests across major growing regions. Conflict in the Middle East pushed oil prices higher. Each shock arrived through a different channel, but each raised the cost of growing, packing, and moving food, including fruit and vegetables.
Shocks are not new to the produce industry. Weather has always been a factor. Pests, frost, and freight disruptions are not surprises in this business. Suppliers and retailers have decades of expertise in managing these pressures.
What has not settled is uncertainty, and uncertainty is harder to shake than any single shock. After a shock, costs rise quickly but fall much more slowly when the future is unclear. A drought ends. A pandemic peters out. But a policy or trade agreement whose future is called into question simply sits on the system. Unlike a storm, policy uncertainty lingers, and lingering uncertainty has recently become one of the most powerful, and least visible, drivers of food inflation. The tariffs imposed in 2025 were a vivid example. They were announced with little warning, revised repeatedly, and raised costs for growers, shippers, retailers, and ultimately consumers. That kind of policy whiplash is its own form of inflation.
Uncertainty postpones the investments that make food affordable over time, from new acreage to cold storage and automation. It requires companies to spend continuously just to stay compliant with rules that keep shifting. It widens the risk premium on every long-term commitment, from supply contracts to capital projects. Uncertainty, in other words, is not just more risk; it is inflationary.
The clearest current example is already on the calendar. The USMCA, the agreement that governs trade across North America, is undergoing its first formal review. Whatever the review concludes, the months of open questions surrounding it are a cost the industry pays in the meantime. That ambiguity matters for fresh produce. Cross-border trade is what keeps fruits and vegetables stocked 12 months a year. It is also what holds export markets open for North American producers. The industry is not of one mind here. Some depend on imports; others would prefer firmer limits on them. But an unsettled framework, or a threat to the agreement outright, taxes the entire system. It changes whether a grower plants, a shipper signs a multi-year deal, or a retailer commits to a year-round program. Everyone from producers to consumers pays the price.
Trade is not the only arena where this plays out. Fresh produce is among the most labor-intensive foods grown, picked and packed largely by hand. Decisions surrounding immigration policy, labor availability, and wage requirements influence whether growers can confidently plan for future harvests. A grower who cannot count on a crew at harvest faces the same uncertainty as one who cannot count on a border staying open.
No company or industry alone can bring policy stability. That pen belongs to governments. What suppliers and retailers can control is their own exposure, and that is harder in produce than in almost any other business. You cannot re-source a winter berry program or a year-round avocado supply on a season’s notice. Diversification here is less about replacing one source than about not staking the whole operation on a single policy outcome. It means building optionality over years, keeping more than one door open in both sourcing and markets, developing relationships, improving communication, and writing flexibility into contracts so that cost shifts are shared and planned.
Certainty, once taken for granted as a public good, has now turned into a competitive advantage. When policy becomes unpredictable, businesses must manufacture their own through resilience. In an era when every dollar at the register is scrutinized, organizations that build that resilience will be the ones that keep food available and affordable. That may be the most valuable item the produce industry can put on the table.