As food prices rise, how much is too much?

The price of food could rise 40% on average before consumers start switching to different products or buying less, according to a recent survey.

British firms Ingredient Communications and SurveyGoo asked a thousand U.S. and U.K shoppers this month how much more they'd pay for certain products to gauge when consumers find items too expensive.

Inflation is affecting the cost of nearly all goods, including food. Most of the roughly 500 U.S. consumers surveyed have noticed an increase in their grocery bills and blamed a variety of factors, like supply chain problems, high fuel prices and post-pandemic economic recovery.

More than half of those surveyed have switched to lower-cost options of the same product, and 40% have started buying less of the same product.

"In such challenging market conditions, brands will need to work hard to retain consumer loyalty," Richard Clarke, managing director of Ingredient Communications, said in a statement.

Minnesota's major food companies pay close attention to consumer price sensitivity. As the cost of supplies and ingredients they buy have gone up this year, they've passed those along to shoppers at the retail level through price increases.

But food makers don't want to raise prices so much that consumers stop buying their products. So far, Minnesota's largest food manufacturers say consumers have not changed their buying habits, signaling more increases are on the way.

Land O' Lakes Inc. said it has met increased costs with "higher pricing across the portfolio," while Post Holdings, which owns Lakeville-based Post Consumer Brands, said in its annual report this week that "virtually every input cost saw significant inflation, and we took pricing actions accordingly."

The chief executive of General Mills, which reports quarterly earnings next week, said this fall that despite increased prices, "demand is holding up quite well and is holding up a little bit better than we had thought."

"Our prices are going to go up for the remainder of the year as we see inflation going up," CEO Jeff Harmening told investors in September. "Ideally, you'd not like to go back to retailers multiple times, or consumers, with price increases, but we're clearly not in an ideal market."

Food-at-home prices were up 6.4% in November compared to the year before, according to the most recent federal inflation report — the largest yearly increase since 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Survey respondents were more willing to blame the government for higher food prices — 59% said as much — than food manufacturers, grocery stores or consumers.

Some of that has to do with relatively high costs to begin with.

"For basic goods, even a large percentage price increase might still only be a matter of cents," Clarke said. "By contrast, a small percentage increase in the cost of a premium nutrition product might be measured in dollars."

For instance, a 40% increase on a $4 loaf of bread is an additional $1.60, whereas that same increase on a $20 protein powder adds $8 to a shopper's grocery bill.