- White truffle prices are soaring to as much as $4,950, Bloomberg reports.
- The
price hikes are due toclimate change and expanding vineyards taking over truffle habitats.
Your plate of pasta with
According to Bloomberg's Kate Krader, prices for white
Bloomberg reports that at specialty food distributor Chefs Warehouse, white truffles currently cost around $4,000 per pound. Truffle supplier Urbani Truffles is seeing prices around $4,500 per pound and at luxury foods retailer Regalis Foods, prices have jumped to $4,950 a pound for higher-end white truffles deemed "extra class."
Those prices are significantly higher than a few years ago: Vittorio Giordano, vice president of Urbani Truffles, told Bloomberg that the same truffles cost $1,100 or $1,200 per pound in 2019.
At restaurants, those price hikes will likely be handed down to the customer. One chef told Bloomberg he plans to raise the cost of a truffle pasta dish to $100 - another plans to raise the cost of a truffle, egg, and grits dish to $275, up from $175.
While
But truffles are also challenging to grow because they require a specific habitat - a habitat that is being threatened by climate change and deforestation. Since the 19th century, overall truffle production in France has decreased from 1,000 metric tons per season to just 30 metric tons, Insider reported.
John Magazino, director of national accounts at Chefs Warehouse, told Bloomberg that there's "a good chance there might not be white truffles in our lifetime."
"In my daughters' lifetime," he said, "I'm pretty sure they'll be extinct."