Trader Joe's has increased the price of one of its best-selling grocery items after 20 years

Inflation is bananas! Certainly if you are a customer at Trader Joe's - which has increased the price of a banana from 19 to 23 cents.

It may only be an extra 4 cents - but it works out at a 21 per cent increase and it is the first time the price has changed in more than two decades.

In terms of numbers sold, bananas are typically the best-selling item at supermarkets - so it is a change Trader Joe's value-focussed customers will notice.  

The 19 cents banana is such a well-known deal at Trader Joe's that its customers have voted it their favorite item of produce in its annual awards a total of five times, including this year. 

Trader Joe's said: 'We only change our prices when our costs change, and after holding our price for bananas at 19 cents each for more than two decades, we've now reached a point where this change is necessary.'

Americans have faced two years of punishing price rises for groceries.

Even value store Dollar Tree said it will up the price cap at its stores - where once everying was $1 or less - to $7.

Trader Joe's, like most supermarkets, used to sell bananas by weight.

But Dan Bane, the former CEO, said this changed after she had a chat with a 'nice little lady'at a store in Sun City, Arizona.

After the woman spent time looking at bananas but walked off without buying them.

In a podcast from 2018, Bane recalled: 'I asked her, I said, 'Ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, I saw you looking at the bananas but you didn't … put anything in your cart.

'And she says to me, 'Sonny, I may not live to that fourth banana.' And so we decided the next day that we were going to sell individual bananas.'

Bananas have been one of the foods least affected by inflation over the years. 

In America, a pound of bananas was about 63 cents last month. 

That's only 3 cents more than it was a decade ago, government data shows.

In terms of numbers sold, bananas are typically the best-selling item at supermarkets - so it is a change Trader Joe's value-focussed customers will notice.

'Bananas are a very popular fruit among consumers, so retailers try to keep prices low,' Neil Saunders, managing director at research firm GlobalData, said. 

'However, prices cannot defy gravity forever and (we are) now starting to see retailers like Trader Joe's make adjustments.' 

He said one of the main reasons behind these increases is the rising cost of farming bananas. Fertilizer, pesticide and transportation prices have all gone up due to general inflation. 

At the same time, demand for bananas has been growing, he said. That creates an imbalance with supply as exporters face pressures of higher costs, greater prevalence of disease impacting plants and unfavorable weather conditions.

The average American household now spends $1,080 per month at the grocery store as two years of rampant inflation takes its toll on household budgets.

Analysis of US Census data in January showed shopping costs vary by as much as $304 per month state-by-state. 

The findings, from HelpAdvisor, show grocery spending is highest in California where the average household splashes out $297.72 per week - or around $1,190 per month.

Meanwhile, a recent viral video showed British high school students trying 10 Trader Joe's cult classic items for the first time - with VERY mixed results