You undoubtedly felt it in your wallet, but Testaankoop also establishes it in black and white: food prices are falling, but they are doing so excruciatingly slowly. Compared to August last year, you still pay almost 15 percent more for your groceries in the supermarket. What is still very expensive today? And why are food prices falling so slowly? And can nothing be done about it? Laura Clays from Test Purchase explains.
Every month Testaankoop calculates which products in the supermarket are rising in price, which are (possibly) falling, and how much that is compared to a year ago. About a year and a half ago, prices suddenly started to rise sharply, peaking in March 2022. Since then, that ‘food inflation’ has been falling slowly, but still very slowly. For example, a month of groceries for two people still costs an average of 69 euros more than a year ago.
Which food has become the most expensive?
“Vegetables in particular have risen the most in price for six months,” said Laura Clays, spokeswoman for Testaankoop. “In August you paid an average of 31 percent more for vegetables than last year. Many vegetables that we only grow in greenhouses here are so expensive because it still cost too much to heat those greenhouses in October last year. So we didn’t grow them and imported them, which entails extra transport costs. But other vegetables are also expensive. In fact, the strongest risers are onions (+55%) and carrots (+70%). Onions are so expensive because the harvest was less than expected.”
So far we have hardly seen any decreases in frying oil, semi-skimmed milk, young cheese, flour and pasta, while international prices for their raw materials have fallen.
Laura Clays, Testaankoop
What are we still paying a lot for and why?
You still pay a lot for ketchup (+49%) and tomato paste (+41%). “That is probably because the raw materials, namely tomatoes, were extremely expensive last year. The fact that frozen products are also very expensive today has to do with the many costs for processing them, such as wages and energy.” And paper products also remain expensive. “You pay 20 percent more for it than last year, and even 58 percent more for it than two years ago, which is a huge amount.”
Among the other climbers, eggs (+25%), young cheese (+23%) and bread (+15%) stand out. Soft drinks (+9%), fish (+8%) and meat (+7%) also continue to rise in price. “We have been complaining for some time that the international prices of products such as oil, grains and dairy have fallen. But so far we hardly see any decreases in products such as deep-frying oil, semi-skimmed milk, young cheese, flour and pasta,” notes Laura Clays. Why not? “It is difficult for us to understand this, because we do not know all the costs for food production. What we do know is that Belgian companies have had higher wage costs since the beginning of this year.”
But do those wage costs outweigh the falling raw material prices? Claeys continues: “In any case, it always takes a while before falling costs lead to falling food prices, partly because food producers have longer-term price agreements with supermarkets. Still, we expected supermarket prices to fall more in the second half of 2023.”
We think profits will stick with international food companies.
Laura Clays, Testaankoop
Will there be a lot of profit somewhere?
“Not at the supermarkets, the competition among them is too great for that. I also want to believe that the Belgian food producers do not collect the profit. We believe profits will stick with global food companies. Experts tell us that their profits for 2022 were remarkably high.”
What can be done about this? France, for example, fixes the price of 5,000 retail products. “That’s a good first step,” says Laura Clays. “The government would then negotiate those lower prices with the supermarkets, which would ultimately have to agree to lower revenues. But they can then use that in their negotiations with their suppliers. And that puts pressure on the food producers.”
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2023-09-04 17:00:57
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