Rising food prices in Romania

The price of food has increased in Romania, with such categories as eggs, meat and dairy products having gone up significantly

Roxana Vasile, 20.11.2017, 15:30

Food products becoming ridiculously expensive around big holidays such as Easter, Christmas and the New Year seems to have become a tradition in Romania in the past few years. Retailers are the first to blame for taking advantage of the customers increased shopping mood around these holidays.

This year, however, some basic food products have become outrageously expensive. For several weeks now, eggs, meat and dairy products, butter in particular, have almost doubled their shelf price. The rise in the price of eggs is justified by a decrease in production given the nearing of winter, but also by the crisis on the European market triggered by the Fipronil contamination scandal, that affected farms in the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

A European crisis is also invoked when it comes to butter having become more expensive. Romanians must also pay more for meat, although the Romanian Association of Animal Breeders and Exporters says that the farm gate price for chicken and pork has in fact went down by 30% as against last year.

The Agriculture Minister himself, Petre Daea, says the price hike is unjustified: “We have verified both the shelf price and the farm gate price for every separate product. What we have found is that there are no changes in terms of production costs. We have not found any objective reason that should justify the price increase, so we have called on the Competition Council, the relevant body in this case, to look into the matter and see if they can find any reasons for it on the market.

Among the factors that can influence the costs set by producers and transporters are an increase in the energy and fuel prices or a depreciation of the domestic currency, the leu, against the euro.

Even so, these factors alone could not have caused the current doubling of prices, says the president of the trade unions in the food sector, Dragos Frumosu: “Its difficult to fine anyone, because the market is free after all. The problem is the lack of any consideration of those who do this deliberately, for the consumers that bring money to their pockets on a daily basis, since we are talking about food.

While Dragos Frumosu blames the current situation on a “game at international level, from which producers have to win, the head of the employers associations in the food sector, Sorin Minea, does not believe in the conspiracy theory. In his opinion, the current rise in prices is just the beginning of a process whose major effects will be seen all throughout the next year.

Sorin Minea: “The price increases will contain all additional costs, with the electricity, fuel, inflation, domestic currency depreciation, the gross salary rise. All these will contribute to setting the new prices of food products.

According to the National Statistics Institute, in the first ten months of the year the price of electricity went up by over 7%, the thermal energy price increased by around 3% and the price of natural gas by almost 2%.