Trader Joe's raises banana prices for 1st time in over 2 decades
Becca Camping bags her own groceries after shopping at Trader Joe's in San Francisco, Calif. Tuesday, January 26, 2021. (Jessica Christian/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Trader Joe's is doing something it hasn't done in more than 20 years: raising the prices of bananas.
The grocery store company said the price of one banana is $0.23 instead of $0.19. Company officials said prices change only when costs change.
The $0.19 banana became a popular deal, even making it on the store's customer choice awards winners' list.
Industry experts said the price of the fruit could continue to rise due to climate change.
"At the same time, we have been able to negotiate costs for a number of our products, and have lowered our retail prices accordingly," the company said in a statement to FOX TV Stations. "A few examples: Raw Almonds are now $3.99 a pound, down a dollar; Romaine Hearts are now $2.99, down 50¢; Organic Tri-Color Bell Peppers are $4.49, a reduction of 50¢; and Green Onions are now 99¢, our lowest price in at least a decade."
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The U.N. weather agency has sounded a "red alert" about global warming, citing record-smashing increases last year in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures and melting of glaciers and sea ice, and is warning that the world’s efforts to reverse the trend have been inadequate.
The World Meteorological Organization said there is a "high probability" that 2024 will be another record-hot year.
Shoreview, Minnesota. Trader Joe's, an American chain of grocery stores does not have sales, coupons, loyalty programs or membership cards. It has good prices and the best products available for its customers. (Photo by: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal I
The Geneva-based agency, in a "State of the Global Climate" report released this month, ratcheted up concerns that a much-vaunted climate goal is increasingly in jeopardy: That the world can unite to limit planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels.
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"Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris agreement on climate change," said Celeste Saulo, the agency’s secretary-general. "The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world."
"Earth’s issuing a distress call," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. "The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts."
WMO said the impact of heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Los Angeles.