Skyrocketing inflation and increasingly expensive spending: milk and butter are down, but vegetables are on the rise
Il shopping cart keep on running. And setback doesn’t seem to be on the horizon just yet, despite i optimistic signals on the energy front, with gas reaching pre-invasion Ukraine levels. In the crosshairs of the bullish vortex of prices are finished (some) of main food raw materials traded in the Italian market.
According to the new elaborations made by bmti on the wholesale price lists surveyed by the Commodity Exchanges and the Chambers of Commerce in January, the turbochargers are the prices of some vegetables come: artichokes, turnip greens, long yellow peppers, curly spinach and dark courgettes. The increases range from a simple +12% to a more solid +28.9%, 27.1%, 31% and +45.6%. Compared to last year, however, from Bmti’s processing of the data collected in the wholesale markets of the Italmercati Network, for most horticultural products prices are decreasing, thus determining typically winter wholesale prices. Also due to a decidedly low level of demand compared to the average for the period. According to the new estimates, however, the prices in the cereal market and, upstream of the dairy chain, for the latte and the burro.
“Inflation is one of the most significant problems that Italian families are facing today“, he has declared Richard Cuomo, director of Bmti ScpA, contacted by the Agi press agency. “Bmti, with its contribution, seeks to guide Italian consumers towards a conscious purchase, in which neither the economic nor the health factor is underestimated. This is why, with the Shopping bagevery Friday, ranks the best seasonal products which are good value for money”.
The sharp drop in temperatures these days, however, could have a impact on national crops, also influencing the prices, first of all fennel, particularly sensitive to cold and not imported from other countries. Going back to cereal prices, specifically they are soft wheat and corn are down: compared to mid-November, the prices of soft wheat intended for bread-making dropped by 9% and a similar reduction can be seen for corn.
Inflation boom, soft wheat prices fall but never remaining above 2021 levels
“Weighing on the declines is a market scenario characterized by supply exceeding demand, thanks also to the arrivals of foreign goods”, explains Cuomo. In this light, the renewal of the agreement to guarantee cereal exports through the Black Sea, signed last November, helped to cool the uncertainties about product availability. Added to this, the expert continues in his reasoning, “is the strengthening of the euro against the dollar, which contributes to make dollar-denominated foreign grains more competitiveand a global scenario that for wheat is marked by a record production, estimated for the current year at almost 800 million tons (+2% compared to the previous year, based on IGC data)”.
The current prices of wheat and more however they remain high, above 300 euro/t, with an annual growth of +6% for the Wheat and +16% for corn. Prices of durum wheat are also declining (-4% compared to mid-November) and current prices mark a drop of almost 15% compared to the record values recorded a year ago. After the record prices reached in the latter part of 2022, the last few days are showing gods first signs of decline also for ricealthough the values remain at record levels, more than doubled compared to last year for the traditional risotto varieties (Arborio, Carnaroli).
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