Trader Joe’s raises banana prices for first time in 20 years

Trader Joe’s has sold bananas for only 19 cents each for two decades. But that bargain price is no more.

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The grocery store has raised the price to 23 cents each, for the first time in more than 20 years.

The company told CNN, “We only change our prices when our costs change, and after holding our price for Bananas at 19¢ each for more than two decades, we’ve now reached a point where this change is necessary.”

It is a 20% increase, but the company said that it still “represents a tremendous everyday value,” Fox Business reported.

The average price for bananas has remained about the same, at between 62 and 64 cents a point from February 2023 to February 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But CBS News reported that the World Banana Forum warned earlier this month that climate change and rising temperatures can make the cost go up.

“Producers like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, will see a negative impact of rising temperatures over the next few decades,” Dan Bebber, a professor who studies sustainable agriculture and crop pathogens, told CBS News.

He said that climate change is also allowing diseases to attack bananas and thrive. One, TR4, was called by the forum one of the “most aggressive and destructive fungi in the history of agriculture.”

“Once a plantation has been infected, it cannot be eradicated. There is no pesticide or fungicide that is effective,” Sabine Altendorf, an economist with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, told CBS News.

Bebber said that higher prices now will help countries that produce bananas fight back against the diseases brought by climate change.

Trader Joe’s did say that while the price of bananas did go up by four cents, it did lower prices on other items, CNN reported.

Raw almonds are now a dollar cheaper. Romaine hearts and its organic tri-color bell peppers were lowered by 50 cents, Fox Business reported.

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