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Vegetables in the supermarket have become a lot more expensive in the past two years, according to the monthly inflation figures of Testaankoop. The consumer organization believes it is high time to make healthy, sustainable food a logical and affordable choice for consumers.
Friday, February 2, 2024 at 12:30 PM
Testaankoop calculates the inflation figures every month based on 3,500 products from seven major supermarkets. Although inflation fell further to 5.93 percent, basic products have risen sharply in price over the past two years. Compared to two years ago, consumers pay an average of 25.27 percent more.
Vegetables in particular – onions, carrots, but also cauliflower and potatoes – saw a huge price increase. In January 2022 you still paid 1.01 euros for a kilo of carrots, a year later it was already 1.22 euros and last month it was 1.34 euros. The price for a kilo of onions rose from 1.33 euros in 2022 to 1.54 euros last year and ultimately 2.09 euros this year.
Because the supermarket bill weighs on families’ budgets, more consumers are opting for cheaper, often unhealthy food. Yet people are more willing to choose local and sustainable products, many studies by Testaankoop and other consumer organizations show.
For Testaankoop, the solution is twofold and can also benefit the angry farmers. “On the one hand, healthy and sustainable food must become affordable,” says spokesperson Laura Clays.
“Make it more fiscally attractive, grant subsidies to farmers who invest in more ecological agriculture, and regulate – read: limit – the advertising of unhealthy products. In addition, our dependence on fossil energy and imported animal feed must be reduced. This does not have to be accompanied by large price increases. Because it was precisely this dependence that led to the extremely high inflation figures of the past year.”
