Spice Saffron, which is the stamens of the saffron crocus, has built a reputation for being more expensive than gold. Its high price stems from the labor input: only about 6 pounds (2,7 kilo) of saffron can be produced from each acre (0,4 hectare) of land, so the price per kilo goes as high as $6000.
It is a known fact that any caviar is an expensive treat, however there are stars too – almas caviar. This caviar is white, and it comes from beluga which is over 100 years old. Beluga sturgeon, the largest fish and only predator in the sturgeon family, can take up to 20 years to reach maturity. It is believed, that the whiter the caviar the older the fish and the more exquisite the flavor. Almas Iranian caviar is extremely expensive. It is sold only in 24K gold tin for $2000 per 100 gram.
The world’s expensive chocolate is Chocopologie by a hand made chocolate with 70 percent Valrhona cocoa powder rolled over French Black truffle which costs $250 a piece, i.e. $2,600 per pound (453 gram).
If you don’t feel like eating pure chocolate you may top it with the edible gold flakes as offered by DeLafée, a Swiss company, or even get just the, without a chocolate, for $73.87 a gram.
To wash down all the above exquisite viands some may want to use the equally expensive liquid. Say, the world's most expensive beer, Belgian Vielle Bon Secours costing around $1,000 per bottle or about $78 per pint. It can only be found in a bar called the Bierdrome in London.
Food costs are largely determined by the time and resources it takes to do all of the steps required to get the product from the farm or manufacturing facility to your local store. And like everything else on the market, supply and demand also plays a part. Here's the skinny on why some food items are so expensive.
Brand names
A more expensive price tag usually indicates higher quality, but this isn't always the case when it comes to food products. Brand name foods are often produced by the same manufacturer as generic or store brands, but the brand names cost significantly more. This is because brand names need to advertise and market their products, and these costs are built into the price of the food. Generic brands rarely advertise, so the savings are passed along to the customer. Advertising and marketing in the United States is a major expense -- a full page print ad in a national magazine can hit five figures. And production costs for a TV commercial usually runs hundreds of thousands of dollars, which doesn't even include the cost of air time.
Organics
Farmers that use agrochemicals have operations that are heavily subsidized by the government. Agrochemicals weren't developed with taste, nutrition or the environment in mind, but they help to produce abundant amounts of food by allowing farmers to grow fruits and vegetables faster and cheaper. Organic foods are grown without using pesticides, chemical fertilizers, growth hormones or antibiotics, which is considerably more labor intensive than larger, non-organic farms, and organic farmers don't receive any subsidies from the government.
Fancy Foods |
Rare Foods
Some foods cost more money because of the simple fact that they're hard to come by. Everybody knows that when the demand is greater than the supply for any product, the cost is going to go up. Many of these same foods require more human resources and labor to acquire or produce. Saffron is a spice famous for its distinctive taste and considerable expense, due to the staggering number of flowers it takes to produce a very small amount of the spice. Macadamia nuts are also on the pricey side for the same reason -- only trees that are at least seven years old can produce them. Truffles are extremely expensive because of the labor required to put them on your plate and the fact that they only exist in a few regions. Despite a lot of effort, these underground fungi have never been able to be artificially cultivated. Locating truffles is a very time consuming and labor intensive operation, which is why this delicacy can cost anywhere from $500 to $2,000 per pound.
