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Why Chips Are So Expensive But The Reasons Don’t Matter
Snacks as a harbinger of American economic satisfaction
As I munched on Cheez-its, flipping through endless articles explaining the 2024 election results, I thought about what unites us as Americans: a disdain for daylight savings time, a desire for less meetings, and a hatred for waiting in line.
But there is something that truly unites all Americans — snacks. Second only to the Bulgarians () in consumption per capita, Americans eat on average of snacks annually.
In total dollars spent annually, the US leads the world at spent per year on snacking far outpacing China in second place at .
If you buy food, you already know that prices are up. If there is another thing that brings Americans together, it’s disdain for high prices. And if you want to piss people off, hit them where it hurts: right in the snacks. It is unwise to try to convince people they don’t feel the way they do. More on that in a moment.
In a July 2024 , CEO Ramon Laguarta said:
“There is clearly a consumer that is more challenged, and a consumer that is telling us that in particular parts of our portfolio, they want more value to stay with our…
