Why Your Supermarket Is About to Get More Expensive — Even If the Iran War Ends Tomorrow

Food prices are rising across Europe even in categories that don't directly use energy. Here is how the Iran war is spreading through supply chains in ways that will outlast the conflict itself.

The intuitive connection between the Iran war and petrol prices is obvious — oil comes from the Gulf, the Gulf is in conflict, petrol costs more. The connection between the Iran war and the price of a head of lettuce in a Belgian supermarket requires more explanation but is equally real, and understanding it helps explain why food price inflation is likely to persist even after the immediate military crisis resolves.

Fresh produce in European supermarkets travels extraordinary distances on its journey from field to shelf. A tomato grown in southern Spain reaches a Dutch distribution centre, is sorted and packaged, travels to a supermarket in Stockholm, and arrives on the shelf approximately 96 hours after leaving the field — a journey that requires refrigerated trucks at multiple stages, running on diesel that is now 22-28 percent more expensive than it was in February.

That cost increase appears in the supermarket price in three ways. First, directly: logistics companies pass fuel surcharges to food distributors, who pass them to retailers, who pass them to consumers. Second, indirectly through packaging: the plastic film and polystyrene trays used for most supermarket fresh produce are petroleum derivatives whose prices track oil markets. Third, through fertiliser: most European fresh produce is grown using nitrogen fertilisers whose production requires large amounts of natural gas, which has also spiked dramatically.

The lag time between these input cost increases and their full appearance in retail prices is between four and ten weeks, depending on how long existing supply contracts run and how quickly retailers adjust pricing. Which means that the full impact of March 2026's energy price spike on European supermarket prices will not be visible until May or June — regardless of what happens with the Iran war in the interim.

Even if a deal is struck on April 6 and the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened, the prices that went up through March need time to come back down through the same supply chain channels. History from the 2022-2024 energy crisis suggests this takes many months longer than the price rise itself.