Crazy! This Is How Expensive Groceries Are in Alaska

Heading to the supermarket with a twenty-dollar bill, coming out broke and with just a bag of chips: Emily lives in Alaska and shares on TikTok how ridiculously expensive groceries are when you live somewhere so remote. She did the math: everything in Alaska is at least 24 percent more expensive.

Emily In Alaska’s video on TikTok has prompted nothing but astonished reactions: people simply can’t believe that grocery shopping in Alaska is so incredibly expensive. How can people support a family with prices like these? And why is everything so expensive?

By boat or plane

Emily answers that second question: everything has to be transported to Alaska, either by cargo ship or by plane. Those costs are passed on in the retail price. Emily apparently lives in a fairly remote area, because she also shows what groceries cost in Anchorage, a large city nearby. It’s somewhat cheaper there, but prices are still steep. And no, unfortunately, Alaska’s minimum wage isn’t higher than elsewhere in America, as she points out…

Vegan? No way!

Prices are also skyrocketing in other places in the far north. Katara Piujuq showed what she pays for fruit and vegetables in the northernmost part of Canada. As an Inuit woman, Katara often writes online about her life, and she received a lot of criticism for eating so much meat and fish. Couldn’t she eat a little more vegetarian food? Not really, Katara showed: a watermelon costs more than 70 Canadian dollars, and ten bottles of mineral water cost more than 100 dollars. Vegan? Not happening, unless you win the lottery.

@emilyinalaska_ $18 for milk ? #alaskatok #ruralalaska #fyp #ASOSChaoticToCalm #groceryprices ♬ Buttercup – Jack Stauber

Paying through the nose

People in Europe also sometimes pay through the nose for groceries: in Norway, you pay almost 5 euros for a loaf of brown bread and 6 euros for a beer on a terrace, while in Iceland, a can of beer at the supermarket will also set you back about that much. But nothing compares to the 14 dollars Emily has to pay for two chicken breasts in Alaska, and 13 dollars for a small bottle of coffee creamer.

Also read:

• Supermarkets got more expensive and prices keep rising
• What? Is nettle tea really that expensive? And more outrageously expensive supermarket products
• Shocking: these are the five most expensive wines in the world

Source: Bored Panda