Topic: Food prices in Germany - Tell me what you want to know - page 3. (Read 1003 times)

Electricity is starting from around 0.5+ Euro per kWh for new contracts, most people are sitting on their running contracts though, which has a price guarantee for 1 year or longer and is maybe half of that. But if price guarantee of your contract runs out, you will have to pay 0.5+ now, so double or more of what you paid before.

Gas is around 0.2+ Euro per kWh for new contracts, price guarantee for running contracts as well, where most people pay between 0.05-0.1 per kWh I guess. With the government lowering the VAT on gas, paying the gas bills for December for every household and introducing some cap on the price starting some time next year, the bills should double as well max. Around 50% of houses use gas for heating.


Always depends what is your standard; being forced to lower your standard doesn't sit well with anyone. If you used to have a car and now have to go by bike, you will feel bad. If you used to (or had to) go by foot and now have a bike, you will feel like a king. Both use the same means of transportation, but it's still not the same for both

I agree though that germans are spoiled.

The funny thing about Germany is that they are having one of the better inflation problems compared to other nations, there are nations with 50%+ inflation and they are not overreacting this much.

The reason for that is the fact that the nations with 50% inflation wasn't managed properly to begin with, they were having trouble even before any of this, whereas Germany was managed very well, it was a nation that lived like kings and everyone there lived happily. We weren't happy 10 years ago, we weren't happy 5 or 20 years ago neither, but they were at least happy and they lived good. Now that they are having just a bit of trouble, they think that it’s unliveable and they cannot buy food.

By calculation we can't even eat 3 meals a day with our minimum wage, and it’s funny Germans think they are getting poorer... 3 meals a day is too expensive in my nation, and I am not even talking about anything else, just 3 meals, imagine all the other things. So Germans are fine, they are just overreacting.

Everything is linked together with a few problems:
https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/europe-gas-tracker/tracker-map/

The main problem is the capacity of some pipes, for example, the biggest obstacle is from Spain to France or Italy, in the past Spain which is a net importer had zero reasons to export or import gas from western Europe, now with its LNG capacity it can do so more than the pipes can take.
Also, the price fluctuates due to demand, it's not something extraordinary at all for a heat wave to hit one part of the continent and cold rainy weather on the other, so the prices will do the same, we had negative prices for a few hours in the Netherlands just like the US
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-25/west-texas-gas-prices-go-negative-for-first-time-in-2-years
There was just too much gas being pumped and no demand in other countries at all, themselves filling deposits at record levels, basically France has no storing capacity left at this point.


https://agsi.gie.eu

Every country has enough gas right now, the problem is the price as some have bought like mad while the price was 5 times this level and they are unwilling to spend it unless it goes a bit up, waiting for winter but at the same time having full deposits and not been able to buy and pump in cheaper gas.
That's what panic does, you end up with more expensive stuff than you actually needed at all.

Since I don't know how CNG distribution in the EU and I can't find anything about it, how is distribution done? Is everyone linked or are there 'blocks' of countries that gas does not pass through?

When you see multiple headlines like this:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/energy/europe-natural-gas-prices-plunge/index.html
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/25/energy-crisis-europes-gas-prices-fall-below-100-mwh-for-the-first-time-since-mid-june

It makes you wonder how bad the situation really is all over OR is it because some countries are separate and Germany has no gas in storage and empty tanks but they can't pull from the full ones in the Netherlands?

-Dave

I do remember that Greece used to be the largest producer of olive oil in the world (they got overtaken by another EU country fairly recently if I'm remembering that right).

Olive and rapeseed oil are the two main ones that get used in the UK imo. Rapeseed is grown quite a lot here too because its oil is quite useful - it's potentially legal to water down diesel with it in newer vehicles or run older vehicles directly off it. There's a chance it could've been cheaper too if we're going off last year's prices when I paid £1.54 for a litre.

Olive oil has a history of being used in oil lamps too in the UK. Rapeseed can serve similar functions to both sunflower oil and butter too (a lot of it gets used to make butter spreads).

I'll have to trust your stats as I'm without a PC for a few days and my phone will be awful at displaying those CSVs. I'm surprised the EU is doing similar tactics to the UK though to drive up prices....

Stores are also just an intermediary to bring products to consumers, once the manufacturer increases the price, the store must increase the price to make a profit.

In the EU region, Germany is perhaps the hardest hit country as it is largely dependent on Russian gas and now they only receive 6% of the gas supply after the Nord Stream pipeline was broken by crooks, they are having a headache to find an alternative gas source.

OP said he moved from Ireland to Germany which means OP is living in Germany so he can only update us on the situation in Germany.

But learning German itself is a pain in the ass

F**ck, that is cheap compared to what I pay where I live now. I should be learning German, Ja.

Yes, purchasing power is decreasing so overwhelmingly these days. This phenomenon is more evident than ever and even the first world countries can't escape this sad reality. What I don't understand very well is why products like oil are so expensive here in my country, because the territory is vast and the country is known for feeding the world through food exportation of every kinds. Theoretically there should be surplus of production for us here, consequently leading to cheaper prices, but that is not what happens for real. That is why I concluded expensive prices must be due to producers' greediness.

Personally I've never used lard, but I know some people here who use it in a daily basis and recommend more than cooking oil. They also claim it is more healthy and grant the food more flavour. Interesting that lard here is more expensive than cooking oil. 1 kilogram is about 3,70$ to 5$ (dollar currency).

Or, or, bear with me and watch this totally borderline madness idea, or maybe not to weird

Maybe it's because in reality the EU alone produces as many sunflower seeds for oil as Russia does?
https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL
It's a pain in the ass to link to that table from them on just production by country on a smartphone but trust me, it's the same.
And not only we do produce the same amount but we mainly use rapeseed oil:


The moment I can go past security pretending the silencer on my rifle is a microphone I promise you I will ask her! Oh, should I wait for the answer?

Since I have been saving receipts I went through a bunch from Sept 21 and Sept 22
Looking at a 1 to 1 compare i.e. if I bought it in Target Sept 21 I am looking for it in Target Sept 22 if I bought it in ShopRite Sept 21 I am looking for the same purchase in Sept 22. Comparing across stores is pointless.

Orange Juice = Same
English Muffins = Same
Frozen lunches = See above some went up a lot some went down an equal amount.
Chocolate = Up a lot BUT the on sale price is the same
Maple syrup = down a bit
Bananas = down a bit
Cereal = up a lot $1.19 to $1.49
Frozen chicken = Up about 7%+
Canned soup = up about 10%+
'Cheap' pasta = down about 20%
'Good' pasta = same
fresh pasta = up about 5%
[Can you tell I eat a lot of pasta....]

Everything else was not bought at the same store so I can't compare fairly.

What I AM seeing now is 'weekend pricing' a good cut of meat that is $18/lb on Wednesday is $24/lb Fri-Sun and when you walk back into the store the same meat is back to $18 Monday morning.
And from another thread I started a few years ago:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.60867142

I really think that YES prices are up a bit, but people are really going into a panic because they don't want to change their habits.  Buy the steak you want for Saturday on Thursday, don't just go to the 1st gas station you see. etc.

Nothing wrong with the businesses doing it, they are entitled to make as much money as they want.

-Dave

Edit had a * instead of the + (typo)
Also, I think the bit of the + is to have the cost end in a 9. i.e. they didn't need to go from $1.79 to $1.99 for the soup but 10% would bring it to $1.97 so add $0.02 for more profit and call it a day....

Which reminds me, how much is a kilowatt/hour of electricity in Germany? And the average utility bill (not particularly yours) if you don't mind sharing. And if heat is billed separately then that too.

The country that is mentioned the most in this board in this context (with the addition of the US), as if only they have problems with rising prices, and the rest of the EU lives the same as before. I personally do not care what the prices of oil or anything else are in Germany, France or Spain because I buy these things in my country and what I know is the fact that the price of cooking oil has risen by 80% and even more than 100%.

Perhaps the Europeans should ask former Chancellor Merkel and her team why they persisted with Russian energy sources even after 2014, and now the whole EU is paying the price while they throw away hundreds of billions of EUR to save their economy.

Can you tell us where you are getting your Cooking Oil from and how much of this are coming from your own produce? The countries that are struggling ..are the ones that are mostly importing Oil from the Ukraine and now with the war, Ukraine cannot produce enough to export to other countries... or their crops was destroyed by the Russians.

Also, how much of the oil that are on the shelves, where stock that was stockpiled in warehouses, before the shortages started? A lot of the old stock are now sold at inflated prices... even if it was bought at a much lower price. 

Germany recently set aside 200 billion euros to offset rising end-user prices (infuriating the poorer EU member states). The producer price index is 45%, and food inflation is 10% - this difference is compensated by the German government at the expense of the budget. Therefore, looking at supermarket shelves, you (yet) do not see an explosive rise in prices, but this does not mean that the problem does not exist. The essence of the problem is that until recently Germany was the leader and locomotive of the European Union, a donor country for poorer countries such as Greece and the Baltics, and now it is more concerned with stabilizing its own problems and can no longer support its poor neighbors in the usual amount. Germany is a very rich country and it has a supply of fat to compensate for rising energy prices, fucked not Germany, but the European Union.

ps Is there anyone here from the Baltics or Greece? Tell me if everything is fine with the prices in supermarkets.

Petrol and Diesel prices in Germany as of yesterday:



Is there any product in the German supermarkets you want to know the price of? Or any other thing? Because some people here think that Germany is fucked and there is no way to escape and we are all gonna freeze to death, so the situation isn't like that and quality of life here is still high

Send more first-hand information, it is very valuable

I am wondering on what basis they are changing the pack prices on periodic basis? Like how do the stores know it’s time to upgrade the label this week?

The question is why are we just seeing the price upgrades in the Germany only? Every now and then I can see it’s only Germany everyone talking about. Why other EU regions are not in the mentions.

Does the Germany has Special relationship with the on going war or something?

Germany, the European countries are affected and they are paying more for everything when the war comes but I think that is still nothing compared to the 3rd world countries you and I live in. An 8-hour workday is almost impossible to feed a family with three meals and this has been the case for many years, many places are struggling with food shortages. You can also buy cooking oil, that's happiness, in the countryside where I live now many families have to use lard to replace cooking oil. There's much worse that we don't know because we've never heard of it.

The market is not that volatile to compare the price with last week. You should compare it over the long term like with the prices last year. Just like bitcoin price, in short term it looks like it is dumping or mooning but when you "zoom out" and ignore the bubbles you'd see a nice uptrend.

AFAIK food prices have always been lower in US, generally speaking. But again you should check it in long term (compared to last year for example). But also when speaking of inflation it is not only groceries, it is rent, utility bills or even gas/petrol you pump into your car. How are their prices compared to last year?