Food price comparison
When shopping for Christmas, what is more expensive than in 2023, and what is cheaper?
In the past twelve months, the prices of many foodstuffs have risen again. However, this year’s Christmas shopping is also cheaper.
Shortly before Christmas, the shopping list is often particularly long. Customers are stocking up for the holidays. Some foods are more expensive than a year ago, others are cheaper, as data from the Federal Statistical Office shows. The prices from November 2023 and November 2024 were compared.
Customers will have to plan for higher costs when baking cookies this year. The price of butter was recently almost 39 percent higher than in the same month last year. Sweet almonds, desiccated coconut or similar (+3.8), whole milk (+3.5) and eggs (+1.3) are also slightly more expensive. Sugar is significantly cheaper. The price in November was 23 percent lower than twelve months earlier. Customers also paid less for wheat flour (-6.7) and jam, jam or jelly (-2.8).
Things also get more expensive around the banquet. Beef roulade and loin cost 5.2 percent more in the past few weeks than last year. The price of roast pork was 1.7 percent higher. Customers no longer have to dig so deep into their pockets for other foods. Smoked pork and other pork (-1.8), potatoes (-3.7), rice (-1.9), cauliflower, savoy cabbage and other cabbage (-1.9) and carrots (-2.9) cost less. The price of cucumbers has even fallen by 22 percent.
Chocolate Santa Clauses are up to 50 percent more expensive
For many people in Germany, raclette is on the menu at Christmas. Peppers (+9.6), mixed minced meat (+4.1), tomatoes (+4.3), mushrooms and other mushrooms (+3.8) and semi-hard cheese (+1.5) have become more expensive in the last twelve months . Cooked ham and other cooked meat cost only slightly more (+0.5) than a year ago. Consumers have to shell out significantly less for onions or garlic. The price has fallen by more than 9 percent.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, food prices have recently eased. In November, food prices were a total of 1.8 percent higher than at the end of 2023.
Many sweets that people like to buy before Christmas have also become more expensive. This is shown by an evaluation of the price comparison portal Smhaggle for the German Press Agency. Own-brand Santa Clauses cost 50 percent more in supermarkets and discounters in November than a year earlier, and those from Lindt cost almost 7 percent more. Prices for dominoes were 12 percent higher. For gingerbread hearts with whole milk chocolate, the price increase was up to 32 percent, depending on the type.
dpa
Source: Stern
