The Breakfast Index

Coffee, a glass of orange juice, toast with a spoonful of sugar. Four of the most ordinary things you'll buy this week are also globally-traded commodities, and their prices have done something strange over the last decade. My take: the tidy phrase "food inflation" is doing a lot of hiding here. Most of the rise is one or two weather-hit crops, not your weekly shop as a whole.

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01 · THE BASKET

What your morning costs

+91%
Breakfast basket vs 2015
+170%
Orange juice
+140%
Coffee

Breakfast staples, indexed to 2015 = 100

Each line is one commodity's global price; the thick line is the basket average.

AI ANALYSIS

02 · WHO'S TO BLAME

It isn't spread evenly

A rising "basket" hides who's actually moving. Split it by item and the climb turns out to be the work of a couple of weather-exposed crops, not a broad surge.

Price change since 2015, by item

Soft commodities are thin markets: one bad harvest in the wrong place moves the world price.

AI ANALYSIS

03 · THE VERDICT

A handful of fields

What the breakfast basket is really telling you.

AI ANALYSIS