Overview
- Official figures for November show food inflation at about 1.2% year over year, with sharp item-level swings including butter down roughly 22% and canned stone fruit and chocolate up by 48.1% and 25.9% respectively, reflecting factors such as harvests, supply conditions and input costs.
- A Forsa poll conducted 12–14 November reports 45% of respondents now restrict food purchases because of high prices, up from 39% a year earlier, based on a sample of 1,002 adults.
- The burden is unevenly distributed, with 70% of households under €2,000 net monthly income limiting purchases compared with 39% among households above €3,500, alongside gaps by education level.
- Consumer advocate Ramona Pop warns that a healthy diet increasingly depends on the wallet and notes food prices have risen by more than 35% since 2020.
- The Verbraucherzentrale expects the 1 January 2026 VAT cut on restaurant meals from 19% to 7% to bring little relief to diners and proposes a government-backed price observatory to uncover unfair pricing along the food chain.