Yogurt is a delicious snack that can sometimes pack a healthy punch into your day.
One of the great things about yogurt is that it’s completely customizable.
You can design your yogurt however you want to eat it.
That said, you might find that some ready-made yogurt at the grocery store is quite expensive.
Considering yogurt is usually just a handful of ingredients, you may wonder why it’s so expensive.
Why Is Yogurt So Expensive? (10 Reasons)
The average price of yogurt is around $1.50.
Its price has steadily climbed over the years.
Certain factors like ingredient costs, climate problems, and health factor makes yogurt expensive.
Let’s look at these factors in more detail.
1. Whey
One of the most important ingredients in yogurt is whey.
Whey is what gives yogurt some of its protein.
It’s a byproduct that occurs during the production of cheese.
Because it comes from the processing of cheese, whey is a milk product.
The problem with whey in yogurt is that it can be quite expensive to purchase.
If the company doesn’t also make cheese, for example, they usually have to buy whey from someone else.
Whey takes some time to make since cheese, itself, takes some time to make.
The more whey that a certain type of yogurt has, the more expensive the yogurt is going to be.
That’s why you’ll often find that Greek yogurt tends to be more expensive than other types of yogurt.
It has a higher concentration of whey.
Cheaper brands of yogurt have more water content than whey content.
Besides taking more time to produce, whey also comes with a heavy price due to being a dairy product.
Dairy products can be expensive in certain situations.
Yogurt is expensive because of its whey content.
2. Milk Costs
Whether it’s whey or anything else, milk products are expensive.
That’s because it’s expensive to raise dairy cows.
Ranchers need to have plenty of access to water and food to keep their dairy cows happy and healthy.
If their cows aren’t healthy, they’re not going to be producing dairy products.
At the very least, they’re not going to be producing high-quality dairy products.
The problem with feeding and watering cows is that ranchers are subject to their environments.
Climate change has been rearing its ugly head to farmers.
Droughts have made it difficult to keep their cows hydrated.
Some farmers have to buy water elsewhere and have it shipped to them.
Others are experiencing food problems.
Since the drought has affected both corn and wheat, they’ve had to buy feed at high prices just to keep their cows alive.
Because they’re taking on higher costs, they’re selling their milk products at higher prices.
Since yogurt uses milk products, the manufacturers also have to buy at high prices.
That means they’re selling at even higher prices.
Organic yogurt is even more expensive since organic dairy cows are even more expensive to raise than standard dairy cows.
Yogurt is expensive because of how much milk products can cost.
3. Processing Costs
Yogurt is also expensive to make.
Ingredients, for one, can make manufacturing costs quite high.
Then there’s the actual process of making the yogurt.
While making yogurt at home may seem easy, manufacturers have to make huge batches.
It requires time, labor, and machinery.
Yogurt is also a food product.
As such, manufacturers face high standards to ensure their yogurt is edible.
Since yogurt is a type of fermented food, there’s always a chance that mold or bacteria could grow within it.
A company could lose an entire shipment of yogurt because of the presence of mold.
As such, the process requires a lot of care and effort.
That means a lot of money goes into the making of yogurt.
Since it costs them money, they have to offset those costs with higher prices.
It allows them to earn a profit and continue to operate the business.
Yogurt is expensive because of its expensive manufacturing processes.
4. More Demand For Milk Products
Another reason yogurt is expensive is that there’s more demand than ever for milk products.
Whether it’s milk, cheese, butter, or even yogurt, people are wanting more milk products.
Part of that may be a result of COVID-19.
Milk products are sometimes considered to be comfort food.
Ice cream, for example, is an indulgent and comforting dessert.
Cheese is another type of indulgent food that can bring some comfort.
Because of how stressful the pandemic was, some people have turned to milk products as a way to cope with the stress.
The economic ramifications of the pandemic have also made people stressed.
They might be turning to certain milk products to help them get through tough times as well.
This makes yogurt expensive because it means there’s more competition for ingredients.
If there’s a shortage of whey, for example, yogurt manufacturers are going to feel the brunt of it.
They need whey, in some amount, to make dairy-based yogurt.
However, if other dairy products also need whey, then they find themselves in a bidding war.
Whoever can pay the most for the whey is going to receive the shipment.
That means that the manufacturer is also going to need to offset the high cost they took on.
To do so, they’ll sell their yogurt at high prices.
Yogurt is expensive because of the high demand for milk products and milk ingredients.
5. Yogurt Is Healthy
There’s no question that yogurt provides health benefits.
One of its best health benefits is its calcium content.
Calcium plays quite a few important roles in your body.
It’s most known for its protection of your teeth and bones.
Eating yogurt can give you around 49% of your daily need for calcium.
Because it also contains several B vitamins, it’s also known for helping prevent heart disease.
Thanks to whey, it also usually has a high protein count.
That makes it a great snack before or after a workout.
It can help you increase your muscle mass.
Some types of yogurt also come fortified with vitamin D.
That’s because yogurt, itself, doesn’t have vitamin D.
Some manufacturers will inject yogurt with vitamin D, however, to give it that added boost.
That makes yogurt quite a healthy snack.
Because it’s healthy, it also comes with a healthy price tag.
Any food that offers a good dose of healthy nutrients tends to be on the expensive side.
That’s because there’s some sort of expectation that something that is good for you tends to be more expensive.
It’s the cheap foods that are usually bad for your health.
Yogurt is expensive because it’s healthy.
6. High Demand
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons behind yogurt’s expensive price is the fact that it’s in high demand.
For many, yogurt is a tasty treat.
One of the best aspects about it is that you can customize it as much as you want.
The yogurt, itself, tends to be the base.
From there, you can add as many other ingredients on top of it as you want.
You can also make it a bit less healthy by adding sugar, chocolate, and other sweet ingredients.
There are tons of recipes online, too, that can inspire you when you’re becoming tired of your current yogurt recipe.
Because of that, yogurt tends to never become boring.
A lot of people also eat yogurt for its health benefits.
Especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, people have become interested in eating food that helps them stay healthy.
Yogurt is certainly one of the foods that can help you maintain good health.
However, the fact that yogurt is in such high demand means that the price is also more expensive.
The more demand that a product has, the more expensive it’s going to be.
This is especially the case when the supply isn’t always able to meet demand.
Yogurt is expensive because it’s in high demand.
7. Takes Time To Make
Part of the reason the manufacturing process is expensive is that it takes a long time to make yogurt.
In other industries, it doesn’t take manufacturers long at all to make products.
They simply run it down an assembly line, and then it’s out the door and headed for store shelves.
That isn’t the case with yogurt.
To make yogurt, the product has to cure for some time.
The longer it cures, the healthier and more flavorful the yogurt becomes.
When making yogurt at home, you can usually get away with letting your yogurt cure for six to 12 hours.
Commercial yogurt tends to cure longer than that.
The length of time it takes largely comes down to each company’s formula.
Cheaper brands of yogurt might cure for only a few hours.
More premium brands of yogurt might cure for 24 hours or longer.
This makes yogurt expensive because it means it takes considerable manufacturing and labor costs to make each vat.
They can’t make a profit until their products are on the store shelves and customers are buying them.
To ensure the amount of time spent is worth it, the company has to sell its yogurt at high prices.
Yogurt is expensive because it takes some time to make.
8. Non-Dairy Yogurt
While dairy yogurt tends to be the standard, some people don’t eat dairy.
Those who suffer from lactose intolerance may choose not to eat dairy yogurt because it causes them too much discomfort.
Others who follow a vegan or vegetarian diet might also refrain from consuming dairy-based yogurt.
As such, they’ll turn to eating non-dairy yogurt instead.
This yogurt tends to be more expensive than dairy-based yogurt because it requires more manufacturing.
Since non-dairy yogurt can’t contain dairy, which is the base of any standard yogurt, non-dairy yogurt tends to have more expensive ingredients.
Since the company is using more expensive ingredients, they sell their non-dairy yogurt at more expensive prices.
Yogurt is expensive when it’s non-dairy.
9. Doesn’t Last Long
A problem you can sometimes experience with yogurt is that it doesn’t always last long.
Because it’s a dairy-based product, in most cases, the dairy tends to spoil after a while.
As soon as you open the yogurt, it becomes tainted by the bacteria in the air.
Since it is a fermented product, it won’t take long for bacteria to spread through the yogurt.
As a result, you might find that your yogurt has spoiled before you can even enjoy it.
Your only choice is to toss it away.
That can make buying yogurt quite expensive.
You’re buying it, but you don’t even get to eat it.
Yogurt is expensive because it doesn’t last very long.
10. Inflation
A final reason yogurt is expensive is inflation.
You may even find that your standard cup of yogurt is more expensive than normal because of inflation.
Inflation makes the cost of everything increase.
Some companies choose to increase their prices to deal with inflation.
It helps them offset their increased expenses.
Yogurt is expensive because of inflation and how it has increased manufacturing costs.
Conclusion
Yogurt is a delectable snack that can pack quite a bit of healthy nutrients.
However, its price has increased over time due to its ingredients, varieties, and inflation.
