Morning is not so sunny-side up these days – breakfast has become a much more expensive meal.
And New Yorkers aren’t finding it easy to swallow.
“I definitely see an increase in [the price of] cereal,” said Rochelle Neumann, a paralegal who was shopping at a Gramercy Park-area Gristedes. “You used to see it on special every week.
“Now, never. It went from $1.99 on special to two for $7. That’s a major increase.”
One reason breakfast is on the rise is because ethanol-fuel production is using up a large chunk of the corn crop, experts said.
And that is affecting everything from cereal – which has officially seen a 2 percent increase this year – to the feed for the livestock that become bacon, said Ephraim Leibtag, an economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Post, using the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has calculated that a consumer purchasing several common breakfast items could have spent up to 12 percent more last May, than a year earlier.
The average May 2006 grocery bill around the country – including a pound of ground-roasted coffee, a dozen eggs, a gallon of whole milk, a pound of bacon, a 10-ounce box of corn flakes, a pound of white bread and a can of frozen orange-juice concentrate – totaled as much as $16.03. This May, the same list adds up to $17.96.
Sylvia Fitzgerald, 52, a schoolteacher who lives in Stuyvesant Town, noticed the increase.
“OJ has definitely gone up substantially,” she said. “Milk went up. OJ has hit me hardest because my husband drinks it.”
David Larussa, 23, a student from Roosevelt Island, said, “Milk is pretty expensive. Cereal is pretty expensive.”
A store employee agreed.
“I’ve noticed an unusually high price hike [for cereals],” said José Gonzalez, an assistant manager at an East Village Gristedes. “Corn Flakes are about 50 to 60 cents higher today than last year.”
An increased demand for milk globally has raised its price, while droughts in the Midwest have cut wheat production, said Leibtag.
Orange-juice prices have been affected by California freezes and the Florida hurricanes of 2004 and 2005, said Andrew Meadows, of the Florida Department of Citrus.
No matter the reasons for the increases, diner owners in the city are feeling the crunch.
“Everything has gone up. This year is unusual . . . I’m paying for the increase from meat to dairy out of my own pocket,” said Elias Argenas, the owner of Evergreen in Midtown. “By late August, I’ll have to raise the prices on the menu.”