in Italy + 13.6%, in Hungary + 77% – Corriere.it

Not only Eurostat, the European statistical agency, to raise the alarm on the price of bread, one of the essential goods that fall within the basket of products with high purchasing frequency both in Italy and in the EU. And if Eurostat data show an 18% increase in prices from January to early August for the entire EU area, the disaggregated figure for Italy reveals an average increase of 13.6%, lower than the average, but still very high.

The New York Times alarm

The phenomenon also attracted attention across the Atlantic and the online edition of the New York Times has published an extensive report on the increase in the price of bread in Europe, with a particularly keen eye on what is happening in France, a country that in the eyes of New Yorkers is synonymous with baguettes and good European cuisine. a worrying situation – says a producer – in France baguettes now cost 8% more than they were paid a year ago … Let’s not forget that the 1789 Revolution was triggered precisely by the increase in bread prices.

Generalized increases

The perhaps excessively catastrophic or nationalist vision of the French producer consulted by the NYT is also confirmed in the numbers also on this side of the Alps. an increase of 8-10% in eight months, in the Peninsula the increases to 13% that have been registered, are higher than the European average of the increase in consumer prices that the latest flash on September prices photographs at a + 9.9% in the eurozone and + 10.9% in the EU27.

The situation in Italy

According to Coldiretti’s elaborations on data from the Mise Price Observatory, the “quotations” of bread in Italy vary greatly from one city to another. If in Milan a one kilo loaf costs an average of 4.46 euros, in Bologna it goes up to 4.91. While it returns to go down to Rome (2.92 euros per kilo) and Naples where the price settles at 2.16 euros per kilo. In general, in the cities of the South the price remains below the threshold of 2.5 euros per kilo, with the conspicuous exception of Palermo where it reaches an average of 3.89 euros. However, high prices, which in recent days have induced an Apulian baker to practice the anti-inflation offer of 1 euro per kilo: but it has been blocked by competition. According to the president of Unipan, Confcommercio’s Union of Bakers of Campania, prices could rise up to 6 euros per kilo if the trend of rising costs of electricity and raw materials were to continue at current rates.

The causes

The Russian-Ukrainian war, with its heavy economic consequences, in particular with regard to the supply of gas and food raw materials, is one of the main causes of the increases in the price of bread throughout Europe. It is no coincidence that the countries that have suffered most from the increases are those that are located in the vicinity of the conflict area. In Hungary, the price of the basic product has risen by 77% since the beginning of the year, again according to Eurostat data. In other countries of the region – Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia – the rise in bread prices was more than 30%.