The food is increasingly expensive for the stores – so the customers can suffer

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Food prices have increased by 25.5 percent for consumers since 2020. During the same time, food prices have risen by 36 percent for stores and wholesalers, new figures from Statistics Norway show.

If you only look at the figures from February last year to February this year, food was 22.1 percent for consumers. For the stores, prices increased by 22.3 percent during the same period.

– This is a historically high increase, says Kristoffer Olsson, price statistician at Statistics Norway.

“Can follow ITPI”

What has been measured is the ITPI, price index for domestic access. It shows what Swedish stores and companies pay when they buy products from the producers.

This is in contrast to the CPI, consumer price index, which shows how consumer prices develop. It was the CPI that caused Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M) to call the food retailers’ CEOs to a meeting last week. They, in turn, singled out the producer prices as the culprit in the drama.

– We don’t know how the new figures will hit, but generally the CPI usually follows the ITPI with a delay of a month or so, says Kristoffer Olsson.

Karin Brynell, CEO of Svensk Dagligvaruhandel, believes that the figures show that the trade has not secretly raised its prices. Instead, she says that the stores have had reduced margins.

– It has sometimes been suggested that prices have been raised more than can be justified, this shows that this is not true. The trade has not passed the cost on to consumers, she says.

Fight for the customers

Statistics Sweden also observes that wages in trade have not risen at the same rate as the prices of food for consumers. Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether the price increases in the stores are in line with the trade’s cost development over the past year.

Karin Brynell does not believe that there would be new price increases.

– Right now, everyone is struggling to compete for consumers’ reduced purchasing power.

In the clip, Kristoffer Olsson explains what the new figures mean for the consumer – and whether they can lead to even higher food prices.

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