Is food inflation higher in Europe than in the UK?
- By Anthony Reuben
- BBC news
image source, Shutterstock
Food prices in Great Britain are rising more slowly than other countries, according to government minister Mel Stride.
In an interview discussing food price rises with BBC Radio 4, Stride said: “In Germany, Portugal and Sweden it’s around 20%, so higher than it is here.”
Inflation is the rate at which food prices rise, generally measured as an annual figure.
The latest figures for the four countries in question cover the year up to April 2023.
However, as the chart above shows, the UK recorded higher food growth than the others.
Stride would have been right based on last month’s numbers. However, food growth in Germany, Sweden and Portugal has fallen significantly since March – while the figure for the UK has remained stubbornly high.
In fact, UK food inflation in April was higher than the EU average of 16.4% and higher than all the major European economies.
It was beaten by Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Hungary.
BBC Verify asked Stride’s department what figures he was referring to. We were told he was talking about the first three months of 2023, when food price inflation in the UK was 18% and Sweden, Germany and Portugal were above 20%.
What drives food prices up?
It identified three main reasons behind the price increases:
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which had a major impact on energy prices, as well as grain and fertilizer supplies
- Bad weather in Europe and North Africa
- Lack of labor in the UK, which has meant that some crops have not been harvested.
The good news is that global wholesale food prices (that’s the amount producers charge for their products) have fallen. However, it usually takes time to pass through supermarket prices, so customers have to wait for their bills to stop rising.
The ONS says that one of the reasons why prices in the UK have risen faster over a longer period of time may be due to reliance on food imports. This suggests that European countries that grow more of their own food have seen lower food prices.
The next set of UK inflation figures – covering the year to May – will be published on Wednesday.
