Champagne, lobster, caviar – if you really want to go for something culinary, these products are often at the top of the list. They embody pure luxury and the feeling of being able to briefly immerse yourself in the lives of the rich and famous. After all, not everyone can always have their steak gilded for dinner. Luxury stands for decadence, but also exclusivity. In the future, this could also include foods that were recently available in large quantities.
The first price increases are already noticeable in your wallet: recently especially for cocoa and olive oil. In the future, consumers can expect much higher prices, according to the results of a study published by a team of researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Central Bank in the journal Nature. They predict that climate change will further fuel food inflation. By 2035, according to the forecast, food inflation is expected to rise by 0.92 to 3.23 percent per year.
Cheap today, luxury tomorrow
What makes a product a luxury product? An example: oysters. In the 19th century, oysters were still a poor man’s food. On the coasts of England they were available in abundance and for little money. “They were so plentiful and cheap that they were added to stews and pies to inflate them,” food historian Polly Russell tells the BBC. But this fatty lifestyle was over a century later. Overfishing and marine pollution caused stocks to dwindle. And the fewer oysters were taken out of the water, the more their reputation increased. The everyday dish became a special delicacy.
Things went the other way around with spices. Pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon were once exotic items on the shelf; only wealthy people could afford spices. A well-stocked spice rack is now standard in the supermarket. And the precious spices that were once traded like jewels have become commonplace. Even saffron, the most expensive spice in the world, is part of the mainstream.
Availability and price are two important pillars when it comes to whether an item is a luxury item or not. In the future, foods that are now staple foods such as coffee and cocoa could be back on the list. Because climate change is causing cultivated areas to be destroyed. “Many foods could become unaffordable for many people,” said Monique Raats, director of the Food, Consumer Behavior and Health Center at the University of Surrey, to the BBC.
Extreme weather and crop failures are driving up prices
“There will be greater fluctuations in prices and availability for some foods. There will be years in which certain products such as avocado, cocoa, coffee, mango, coconut, papaya and bananas may become more scarce,” said agricultural expert Michael Berger from the environmental protection organization WWF on “Utopia”. One of the reasons for this is the climatic conditions required for cultivation. For many products these are only available to a limited extent. As extreme weather becomes more frequent, the risk of crop failures also increases.
But that’s not all. A rethinking of consumption could also help cheap foods increase in value and become delicacies. Luxury food can also be understood as products that you shouldn’t eat often or a lot, says Raats. Meat, she believes, will become such a luxury item in the next few decades.
Read about which everyday foods could become luxury in the future in the photo gallery above.
Sources: Nature, BBC, Food newspaper, SZ, Utopia