Business
Grocery Shoppers Will Feel the Tariffs First in Produce
Grocery shoppers are likely to feel the impact of the Trump administration’s sweeping new tariffs before April is over. And the first place they’ll feel it is in parts of the store where the inventory has to move fast.
In the produce aisle, food analysts said Thursday, expect small price increases on everyday purchases like bananas from Guatemala and grapes from Peru, countries whose exports to the United States will incur 10 percent tariffs when the new fees go into effect on Saturday. A separate round of reciprocal tariffs on 57 countries will follow on Wednesday.
The seafood counter may hold even worse surprises. Grocery stores sell a lot of shrimp from Vietnam, which President Trump hit with a 46 percent reciprocal tariff, and India, with a 26 percent reciprocal tariff.
Soon, analysts say, price hikes will arrive for staples like sugar and coffee, which is already priced at a historic high. Specialty coffee beans might eventually cost consumers 10 percent to 35 percent more than before the tariffs, bean buyers predicted.
Since the pandemic, grocery stores have been expanding their lines of lower-priced private-label products. Customers loved them as a way to navigate inflation, but tariffs will drive up costs.
“It was a bit of a refuge for consumers,” said Keith Daniels, a managing partner at the investment bank Carl Marks Advisors, who focuses on the food and grocery sectors. “Now that’s not going to be there.”
Still, he and some food executives said that because so much food on shelves in the United States is processed overseas or contains ingredients and packaging from several countries, predicting how tariffs will change food prices is difficult if not impossible.
Some of the cost of the tariffs is likely to be absorbed and not passed on to consumers, as retailers re-evaluate pricing strategies and determine how long the inventory they already have in the country might last.
Still, the opportunity for price gouging or other forms of manipulation are high, said Errol Schweizer, a veteran of the grocery industry who publishes The Checkout Grocery Update, a newsletter.
“Consumers won’t know if things are priced correctly or they are getting ripped off,” he said.
At all levels of the food business, just figuring out the additional paperwork will take time. Walmart requires suppliers to give advance notice of price increases and clear documentation for them. But some businesses have yet to set up systems for recording and paying tariffs.
“It will take a year for all those costs to ripple through, but in 12 months you will absolutely see higher prices across the board,” said Jeff Dunn, the executive chairman of Generous Brands and Bolthouse Fresh Foods.
Big food producers like Mondelez and Kraft Heinz are better equipped to absorb the impact of tariffs than smaller companies with relatively thin operating margins are. For those smaller players, staying afloat with the new tariffs will likely involve some fast, creative and strategic cost-cutting.
On Thursday, Paleovalley, a Colorado company that makes meat sticks and other products, was scrambling to mitigate the potential impact of the tariffs on imported monkfruit purée, an ingredient that is hard to source.
Ethan Frisch is the co-founder and co-chief executive of Burlap & Barrel, which imports spices from 30 countries and buys exclusively from small producers. It has a shipment of cinnamon already coming on a ship from Vietnam. The farmers and the shipping company have all been paid. He has no idea if he will have to pay a tariff.
Because of uncertainties like that, he has decided to scale back on other goods the company was planning to introduce later in the year, like an Advent calendar filled with spice samples from around the world tucked into festive packaging manufactured in China.
Yun Hai, a specialty food shop in New York City, buys directly from rice farms, soy sauce breweries and mills in Taiwan, then ships the goods over in bulk, supplying grocery stores and restaurants across the country. The new tariff on those foods, most of which have no local substitute, is 32 percent.
“We’re on the front line because we’re the importer,” said the company’s chief executive, Lisa Cheng Smith, whose most recent shipment of goods came in on Tuesday, just a day before the tariffs were announced. She plans to examine creative ways to reduce other costs by 32 percent without losing her business.
“We’re not going to panic and just raise our prices right away,” she said.
In the meantime, it might not be a bad idea to stock up, said Sam Silverstein, a reporter for the trade publication Grocery Dive.
“It’s harder to stockpile avocados than cans of soup,” he said, “which is another reason to grab something on the shelf if it’s offered at a good price.”
Tejal Rao contributed reporting.
Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison made his case directly to theater owners Thursday, pledging to release a minimum of 30 films a year from the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery company during a speech at the CinemaCon trade convention in Las Vegas.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison said in a brief on-stage speech, adding that Paramount has already nearly doubled its film lineup for this year with 15 planned releases, up from eight in 2025.
He also said all films will remain in theaters exclusively for 45 days, starting Thursday. Films will then go to streaming platforms in 90 days. The amount of time that films stay in theaters — known as windowing — has been a controversial topic for theater owners, as some studios reduced that period during the pandemic. Theater operators have said the shortened window has trained audiences to wait to watch films at home and cuts into theater revenues.
“I have dedicated the last 20 years of my life to elevating and preserving film,” said Ellison, clad in a dark jacket and shirt with blue jeans. “And at Paramount, we want to tell even more great stories on the big screen — stories that make people think, laugh, dream, wonder and feel — and we want to share them with as broad an audience as possible.”
Ellison’s CinemaCon appearance comes as more than 1,000 Hollywood actors and creatives have signed a letter opposing Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Supporters of the letter have said the deal would reduce competition in the industry and “further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape.”
Some theater operators have also questioned whether the combined company could achieve its goal of releasing 30 films a year, particularly after the cost cuts that are expected after the merger closes.
“People can speculate all they want — but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment,” Ellison said. “And we’ll show you we mean it.”
The speech came after a star-studded video directed by “Wicked: For Good” director Jon M. Chu that was shot on the Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue and showcased directors and actors including Issa Rae, Will Smith, Chris Pratt, James Cameron and Timothée Chalamet that are working with the company.
The video closed with “Top Gun” actor Tom Cruise perched atop the Paramount water tower.
“As you saw, the Paramount lot is alive again,” Ellison said after the video. “And we could not be more excited.”
new video loaded: Why Your Paycheck Feels Smaller
By Ben Casselman, Nour Idriss, Sutton Raphael and Stephanie Swart
April 18, 2026
Nearly two years after actor Alec Baldwin was cleared of criminal charges in the “Rust” movie shooting death, a long simmering civil negligence case is inching toward a trial this fall.
On Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a summary judgment motion requested by the film producers Rust Movie Productions LLC, as well as actor-producer Baldwin and his firm El Dorado Pictures to dismiss the case.
During a hearing, Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter set an Oct. 12 trial date.
The negligence suit was brought more than four years ago by Serge Svetnoy, who served as the chief lighting technician on the problem-plagued western film. Svetnoy was close friends with cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and held her in his arms as she lay dying on the floor of the New Mexico movie set. Baldwin’s firearm had discharged, launching a .45 caliber bullet, which struck and killed her.
The Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, N.M. in 2021.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
Svetnoy was the first crew member of the ill-fated western to bring a lawsuit against the producers, alleging they were negligent in Hutchins’ October 2021 death. He maintains he has suffered trauma in the years since. In addition to negligence, his lawsuit also accuses the producers of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Prosecutors dropped criminal charges against Baldwin, who has long maintained he was not responsible for Hutchins’ death.
“We are pleased with the Court’s decision denying the motions for summary judgment filed by Rust Movie Productions and Mr. Baldwin,” lawyers Gary Dordick and John Upton, who represent Svetnoy, said in a statement following the hearing. “He looks forward to finally having his day in court on this long-pending matter.”
The judge denied the defendants’ request to dismiss the negligence, emotional distress and punitive damages claims. One count directed at Baldwin, alleging assault, was dropped.
Svetnoy has said the bullet whizzed past his head and “narrowly missed him,” according to the gaffer’s suit.
Attorneys representing Baldwin and the producers were not immediately available for comment.
Svetnoy and Hutchins had been friends for more than five years and worked together on nine film productions. Both were immigrants from Ukraine, and they spent holidays together with their families.
On Oct. 21, 2021, he was helping prepare for an afternoon of filming in a wooden church on Bonanza Creek Ranch. Hutchins was conversing with Baldwin to set up a camera angle that Hutchins wanted to depict: a close-up image of the barrel of Baldwin’s revolver.
The day had been chaotic because Hutchins’ union camera crew had walked off the set to protest the lack of nearby housing and previous alleged safety violations with the firearms on the set.
Instead of postponing filming to resolve the labor dispute, producers pushed forward, crew members alleged.
New Mexico prosecutors prevailed in a criminal case against the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez, in March 2024. She served more than a year in a state women’s prison for her involuntary manslaughter conviction before being released last year.
Baldwin faced a similar charge, but the case against him unraveled spectacularly.
On the second day of his July 2024 trial, his criminal defense attorneys — Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro — presented evidence that prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies withheld evidence that may have helped his defense . The judge was furious, setting Baldwin free.
Variety first reported on Friday’s court action.
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