Inflation rose unexpectedly in January and an important cause is higher food prices.
Now there is a concern that food prices will continue to increase.
– We are in a continued challenging situation, says ICA Sweden’s CEO Eric Lundberg.
In one year, prices for food and non -alcoholic beverages have gone up by 2.2 percent, according to Statistics Sweden. The upturn in January was the largest one month since March 2023, according to the Mat Price College’s latest survey.
Eric Lundberg, CEO of ICA Sweden, notes that the increase is due to several factors.
– We are in a continued challenging situation. We have wars in our surroundings that affect goods transport, delays in freight that need to go detours and the general cost increases both linked to interest rates and currency, he tells TT and continues:
– Then, unfortunately, we also see that raw material prices are affected by the harvests, linked to climate issues.
The goods that increased the most
Coffee, tea and cocoa rose most in price with an increase of 3.6 percent.
The cucumber also stands out. It has become 30 percent more expensive since December. The explanation is that it has been cold in Spain at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, which affected the quality and amount of production.
– Then demand has been greater than the supply, and it affects.
According to Eric Lundberg, it is difficult to predict how food prices will develop in the future.
– It is very difficult to give some forecasts, he says.