2024-09-08 16:51:28
Consumers have to dig much deeper into their pockets when shopping than they did a few years ago. The prices of some products have risen particularly sharply. An overview.
Shopping in the supermarket: For many consumers in Germany, this has not always been pure pleasure in recent years. The reason for this was high inflation. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in July 2024, food and non-alcoholic beverages were on average more than 32 percent more expensive than four years ago.
There are numerous reasons for this, such as the effects of the corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine, climate change and rising costs for raw materials, energy and personnel. An overview of the food products for which the test buyers have registered the largest price increases since July 2020:
In July, consumers had to pay more than twice as much for a bottle of olive oil as they did four years ago (+112.6 percent). “The most important reason is the collapse in production in the most important producing country, Spain, in the 2022/23 financial year,” says Thomas Els, head of consumer research at the Agricultural Market Information Company (AMI). There has been only a slight recovery in the current harvest season. The reason is poor harvests due to droughts.
Sugar is also significantly more expensive than in 2020 – 83.3 percent. The price development is shaped by supply concerns on the global sugar market and has also affected prices in Germany, says Els. “Prices reached a record level in 2022, and the upward trend continued in 2023. Another reason is the lower sugar content in sugar beet due to the wet weather, says food expert Jana Fischer from the Hamburg Consumer Advice Center.
Difficult times for those with a sweet tooth: Due to rising prices for raw materials such as sugar, flour and fats, biscuits have become 77.4 percent more expensive. “The wheat harvest was smaller both last year and this year due to wet weather in Germany,” says Fischer. The price of wheat flour was therefore significantly higher (+61.5) in July 2024 than four years previously.
Another reason for the increase was the war in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are among the most important grain exporters in the world. The developments also had an impact on the prices of crispbread and rusks (+66.4).
Prices for dairy products such as quark have risen significantly (+72.6 percent). Smaller milk volumes than in previous years and a low fat content in raw milk led to rising producer prices in 2021/2022, after which they fell again. Since the beginning of 2024, there has been another increase. Quark was more than 70 percent more expensive in July 2024 than four years previously.
There were also price jumps for condensed milk (+61.5 percent), cream (+48.7 percent), semi-hard cheese (+45.8 percent) and butter (+39.4 percent). Why has quark increased the most? Its production is the most complex, says the spokesman for the German Dairy Farmers’ Association, Hans Foldenauer.