Go Back
Why Are Truffles So Expensive?
19 May 2023
In 2014, a 4.16 pound white truffle—the so-called “World’s Largest”—sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $61,250. It was actually a bargain price for the over-sized fungus: That year’s large crop, a result of abundant rain in Italy, had seen wholesale prices drop by 50 percent from the two previous ago.
In 2016, Mental Floss spoke to Vittorio Giordano, the Vice President and Truffle Guru at Urbani Truffles USA—which was founded in Italy in 1852—to figure out a little bit about why truffles are so expensive.
