Breakfast Cereals to Get More Expensive, Thanks to Climate Change

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/breakfast-cereals-to-get-more-expensive-thanks-to-climate-change/371281/

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The price of popular breakfast cereals is set to soar over the next 15 years as a result of climate change, argues a new report from Oxfam International.

If left unchecked, the effects of climate change on basic crops—like rice, wheat, and corn—could drive up the cost of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes in the U.S. by up to 20 percent by 2030, according to Oxfam's analysis. Corn Flakes could also rise up to 30 percent in the U.S., and up to 44 percent in the UK, while the cost of General Mills' Kix cereal could go up by between 12 and 24 percent in the U.S. And that's on top of any other price increases due to inflation.

The new report, called "Standing on the Sidelines," also calls out what Oxfam dubs the "Big 10" food and beverage companies for not doing enough to combat climate change by cutting emissions from their agricultural supply chains and lobbying for governmental action.

Oxfam argues that warming is already having an impact on the American breakfast table. "In rich countries at the moment, we're starting to see the impacts in people's pockets, having to pay more for the products that they are used to consuming on a daily basis," says Oxfam's Tim Gore, one of the report's authors.

[kelliekat44]

1. Everything is getting more expensive and the climate change deniers are blaming climate change.

This will be the new corporate reason for raising our prices to whatever the 1% market can bear while the rest of us spend days and nights trying to figure out how to survive.

[KurtNYC]

2. Breakfast cereal is a very high margin product so kind of an odd choice for their example

The whole point of junk food breakfast cereal is to take a low cost commodity produce like 8-cents per pound GMO HFCS corn and turn it into something they can sell at $3.29 for 10 ounces.

Even if corn goes to 16 cents a pound, (100% increase) they can still look forward to a 2000% gross margin. Grant you that is not a 4100% gross margin but still nothing that should turn their Boo Berries into Boo-hoo Berries.

[oneshooter]

3. The use of corn as a motor fuel (ethanol) instead of food doesn't help either. n/t