Tomatoes at Wal-Mart are $2.78 a pound, they say because of the big freeze in Florida. So...tell me why they were at $1.98 a pound before the big freeze.
How can bananas be grown in Hondorus, picked, packed, shipped, unpacked and reshipped and still make a profit at $0.59 a pound.
Demand remains the same for tomatoes whether there’s a freeze or not. So supply is what governs prices. Before the freeze there were enough to supply demand. Then comes the freeze, which cuts the harvest, forcing farmers to compensate for their expenses by raising prices on what they have left. Restaurants and grovery stores still needed their tomatoes, but with limited tomatoes available they also had to compete by making better offers for the product than their competition, and the middlemen also know that with supply low they could get away with demanding a little more, though in this economy not much more else people might use pickles on their burgers and salads instead. That’s why tomato prices went up.