The Great Truffle-Market Crash of '09

Herbert Lehmann / StockFood How are truffles, one of the most lusted-after foods in the world, feeling the heat of the recession? Katie Workman talks to truffle suppliers and chefs about the treasured fungi.

Wealthy hard-core foodies don’t think of fall as back-to-school time, or even back-from-vacation time. To them, it’s white-truffle season. And while there are plenty of varieties of white truffles, those with the means to buy the best head straight for the Magnatum or Alba truffle, or White Piedmont truffle. These truffles are harvested chiefly in the Piemonte and Emilia Romagna regions of Northern Italy, though some hail from other areas of Italy or France.

Those lucky enough to have encountered a few shavings of fresh white truffle know they are amazingly, hauntingly delicious. Just a waft of heated truffles can inspire thoughts along the lines of “nectar of the Gods,” or “Oh, so that’s why they’re so bloody expensive!”

The recession has put huge pressures on luxury products; even those who have the cash aren’t waving fists of it around at truffle auctions, and the price decline reflects that.

Because, of course, truffles are blazingly expensive. As in, when the waiter approaches the table holding aloft an innocent-looking tuber and asks, “Should I keep shaving?” proceed with caution, or risk losing all those truffles when the check arrives. Truffles are uncultivable, so there are no truffle farms to produce affordable truffles for the masses. But buying the best truffles—and from the best purveyors—is really the only way to go. There are great truffles, and there are not-so-great truffles, and a truffle that’s past its prime can be downright awful.

So has the price of truffles dropped at all as a result of the global economic crisis? Last November, Bloomberg News reported that the white-truffle market was collapsing: An 850-gram white truffle from northern Italy sold for $30,900 at a truffle auction in Tokyo, 84 percent less than the $330,000 Macau casino billionaire Stanley Ho paid for a 1.5-kilogram truffle in 2007.

Vittorio Giordano, vice president of Urbani Truffles USA, says that prices are down, but not nearly by that much. The 84 percent decline in the sale of one truffle over another, he says, isn’t reflective of the market as a whole, but of how flush Stanley Ho was two years ago and what the bragging rights of a 1.5-kilo truffle were worth to him.

The laws of supply and demand are a little wiggly for truffles, which the Urbani family has been harvesting and selling for five generations. Giordano explains that just 65 percent of the demand for truffles is met year to year; demand has always exceeded supply, and still does. But things get trickier when one factors in the three- to six- (seven-, at most) day shelf life of truffles, which are 95 percent water. Once a truffle is past its prime, it may be able to be used in a truffle product, but it will never fetch those big dollars.

Truffle season begins in less than two weeks, and the prices aren’t set yet. Last year, prices ranged from $1,800 to $2,500 a pound for truffles, down from an average of $3,500 the year before, and Giordano said he hopes they will pick up a bit. The price range has to do with the quality, size, and sometimes shape of the truffle, especially if the truffle is being purchased as a showpiece for a big dinner or event. And although demand is larger than supply, Giordano says the recession has put huge pressures on luxury products; even those who have the cash aren’t waving fists of it around at truffle auctions, and the price decline reflects that.