Shocking rise in food prices in Hungary

Hungarian shops have been hit in several waves. Food prices over the past 12 months show an increasingly worrying trend. The first major price jump occurred at the end of 2021. The next jump followed in February-March. In April, many analysts thought that inflation would slow down, but this did not happen.

Severe inflation

The g7 analysis shows a concerning picture of food price rises in Hungary. The inflation rate has been increasing by 5 percent every month.

The price increase started at the end of 2021. At the beginning of 2022, the 10 percent doubled to 20 percent. It jumped to 25 percent in April and then 30 percent in June. July represents the peak, so far. In that month, we paid 35 percent more for food items than a year earlier.

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Method of measuring prices

The prices have been measured at the end of each month by g7 in the following four chain stores: Aldi, Lidl, Penny Market and Tesco. The analysts always selected the cheapest version of each product, which means they were comparing basic products instead of premium quality products. There were quite many some products that experienced a considerable price jump. The price of bread, buns, rolls and spaghetti noodles doubled in a year. A total of 42 products were tested. Only four products were cheaper than a year earlier: carrots, turnips, apples and onions. In the case of other products, the prices increased so rapidly that even the shops could not keep up. As a result, there were huge price differences between certain products.

Where will it end?

It was recently reported that customers can easily find a loaf of bread as expensive as HUF 1,000 (EUR 2.54) on the shelves. The cheapest half-brown bread currently costs HUF 522 (EUR 1.33) a kilo, on average, while it was HUF 251 (EUR 0.64) a year ago. Apparently, further price increases can be expected.

The prices of dairy products (butter, sour cream, cheese, yoghurt) show an annual increase of 50-60 percent. For meat, a market increase of 30 percent is to be expected. As prices go up, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain supplies of price-fixed products. This means a serious loss of revenue for shops, which have already begun to order less stock, 444.hu reports.

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Source: 444.hu, g7.hu