French Fries Are Expensive, and Here's the Reason

You probably noticed the price of, well, everything, going up and up and up. We've heard plenty of explanations, like bird flu for eggs, supply and demand for housing, corporate greed for other stuff, supply chain issues, tariffs, etc. etc. But have we considered monopolies? Sure, monopolies are technically illegal, and so is price-fixing collusion between different companies, but modern technology in the form of algorithms run by third-party services can skip around that and produce the same result. Sam from Half as Interesting explains how that can happen with the example of french fries. He can do this because there is blatant documentary evidence of what's going on to make all our french fries so much more expensive, but this can happen in any industry. And if it happens with America's favorite vegetable, you know it must be going on with other foods and everyday expenses. This video is only 5:55, the rest is an ad.

Comments (1)

Newest 1

Newest 1 Comment

I had noticed french fries had become about 3X more expensive than I remembered, but I assumed restaurants decided to raise those prices to deal with inflation and increased minimum wage, while keeping other items low to appeal to more customers. I didn't mind when I thought I was helping out the businesses. Had I known it was going to a cartel, I would have gladly omitted them and picked other items. I don't know why restaurants aren't responding to the increased prices. Burger places could change thier combo meals to onion rings or hushpuppies, with an upcharge for those who want fries. Mexican places could default to quesadillas or jalapeño poppers. I also haven't noticed big price increases in grocery store branded frozen french fries or tater tots, so it seems like there are some exceptions, and restaurants would just need to make deals with different suppliers. I'd bet somewhere selling half-priced french-fries would bring in some extra business.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)