High price of gluten free food

Have you been to the grocery store lately? Can you believe what is happening to the price of food? It used to be that gluten free foods we thought to be high priced, but today it seems everything is going up up and away.
In the manufacturing business it is our job to source the best ingredients at the best possible price. That requires us to shop for suppliers who meet our specifications and pricing. Both are getting more difficult to accomplish.
As an example, walnuts. We use a fair amount of walnuts in our Chip Chip Hooray cookie dough. Since October our wholesale price has increased 61%. Now I know that our valued inhalers of our fabulous cookie dough will not stand for those kind of increases, so I have had to find other ways to save. We have increased efficiencies and are constantly looking for better values, again without sacrificing anything in quality and taste.
By the way, you should all be aware that there are a number of large sugar (brown sugar) growers who are going to start using GMO sugar beets in their products. Now there is quite a debate going on as to the pros and cons of using GMO (genetically modified organisims) plants. The real rub here is there is no requirement for these growers and manufacturers to tell you they are using GMO's. So you will have no idea whether they are in your food or not. We have instructed our supplier to source our brown and white sugar from companies that only use non-GMO products. Please contact your sugar company and request they do not use GMO.
Back to the pricing issue. A lot of the reason for the increase in prices is being blamed on the government subsidies on corn. Subsidies that were being paid to peanut farmers, dairies and others are being redirected to corn production in hopes it will stimulate the production of ethonol. The result is more acreage is being pulled from producing other products and is being converted to corn. The taking of subsidies has forced those farmers to increase prices and the increase in corn acreage has taken acres away from other crops. The impact is at the checkout counter in higher prices. The double whammy is the increase in oil prices which has driven up the cost to farm an acre. All in all the forecast is for food prices to rise rather steeply and they may never come down. Time will tell.
If you are a gluten free consumer this may have a slight advantage. It is possible that the price increases will affect the mainstream market more than the gluten free market. Grain prices are rising, and that will raise the price of staples such as bread. Soon we may be paying more in parity with mainstream products. Our products won't come down, but hopefully they will not rise as quickly as traditional wheat based products.
If you have any other information concerning this topic, please post it here. It is nice to get other input.
TTYL