According to Catholicism, is the blessing of food by a lay person different from that of a priest?

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If I understood your question correctly, you are asking what the difference between a priests and a normal persons blessings are, right? Well, you almost found the right spot in the Encyclopedia, since, in the very same article we find:

The inquiry will be confined to the Blessings approved of by the Church. As has been said, the value of a blessing given by a private person in his own name will be commensurate with his acceptableness before God by reason of his individual merits and sanctity. A blessing, on the other hand, imparted with the sanction of the Church has all the weight of authority that reaches to the voice of her who is the well-beloved spouse of Christ, pleading on behalf of her children. The whole efficacy, therefore, of these benedictions, in so far as they are liturgical and ecclesiastical, is derived from the prayers and invocations of the Church made in her name by her ministers. (emphasis mine)

So, a blessing from a priest does have a special meaning, although your food usually is not thanked for in mass or some other sacramental rite(this is possible at home, but I do not think a priest would call thanking for food sacramental).
Should this - for whatever circumstance - be the case, however, the Encyclopedia has the following benefits that may come from such a blessing and states that they are more likely to happen due to the authority of the church which is far larger then that of men:

1.Excitation of pious emotions and affections of the heart and, by means of these, remission of venial sin and of the temporal punishment due to it;

2.freedom from power of evil spirits;

3.preservation and restoration of bodily health.

4.various other benefits, temporal or spiritual.

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