Average Prices for Beef, Chicken, Eggs, and Butter Drop in Czech Republic According to Latest Data from Czech Statistical Office

While at the end of the year a kilo of boneless beef cost an average of 285 crowns, in April, according to the latest data from the Czech Statistical Office, an average of 264 crowns was paid for them.

Chickens also dropped in price by a few crowns to CZK 79 per kilo, and eggs cost an average of CZK 4.30 per piece in April. At the beginning of the year it was CZK 5.70. “In the flyers in May, we will find eggs for a price of around three crowns,” Zlata Vašíčková from the Kupi.cz portal told Práv.

You can get a cube of butter on sale for under 30 crowns, while in autumn the sale prices were over 50 crowns. Promotional prices are naturally lower than average.

“Snake cucumbers can be found in the leaflets for less than eight kroner. The last time such discount events took place was in 2021. Other types of fruit and vegetables, such as apples, kiwi, spring onions or zucchini, also became cheaper year-on-year,” Vašíčková added.

According to agrarian analyst Petr Havel, the discounting trend will continue and the prices of bakery and dairy products will also decrease slightly, as they make input agricultural commodities such as cereals, oilseeds and milk cheaper.

“The basic cause of the stabilization or decline of retail food prices is the decrease in costs in the entire vertical farmer-grocer-trader,” noted Havel.

For example, a liter of diesel cost 46 crowns at this time last year and 31 crowns now. They also make energy cheaper, with most suppliers offering gas and electricity prices below the government ceiling.

Havel admitted that pressure from the Minister of Agriculture Zdenek Nekula, who initiated a price investigation at individual stages of the chain, could have played a role.

“However, if costs were not falling, such media activities or controls would have basically no effect on prices,” concluded Havel.

According to him, the discounting is happening gradually because the processors and traders have certain stocks bought at the original prices.

The Office for the Protection of Economic Competition announced yesterday that it did not detect a violation of competition when examining the development of prices on the food market for five basic commodities. That is, neither abuse of a dominant position, nor a hint of possible cartel agreements.

The authority examined the prices of milk, butter, eggs, flour and chicken. He has not yet completed the investigation of sugar prices, also at the initiative of Minister Nekula.

The analysis showed that for the selected five basic commodities, the highest part of the consumer price usually falls to the primary producers.

“Of course, the latter usually also has the highest production costs, whether it is human labor, feed or fertilizers, agricultural machinery, or fuel and energy,” said the chairman of the office, Petr Mlsna.

According to him, the trading margins of processors and traders are at similar levels, but they are usually slightly in favor of traders.

According to the survey, both producers, processors and traders passed on their increased costs to the customer.

“Simply speaking, he pays the increased price of energy three times within the product he buys,” added Mlsna. According to the authority, expensive fertilizers and feed mixtures were also behind the increase in prices for farmers.

The authority did not assess whether the crown margin per egg was reasonable or not. According to Mlsna, this is not his task.

However, the overall proportions of margins in the vertical were not significantly different when compared from 2018. Therefore, it cannot be said that traders or processors are more significantly responsible for the increase in price.

However, the Office did not examine the margins for apples or potatoes, for example, where merchants mark up over one hundred percent, as Právo previously reported.

The Trade and Tourism Association yesterday called on Nekula to apologise. The minister has previously repeatedly stated that traders may have abused their position in the market to raise prices disproportionately.

Nekula immediately rejected the apology. At the same time, in connection with the price drops, he appreciated that the food market in the Czech Republic is working again.