Food prices across the globe [General comparison]

[Onyeeze]

There is a certain countries that the food price or items it is still okay and they affordable for people who is living there to get, unlike other other countries but what I know very well that makes the price of foods to increase in a country is as a result of inflation because when the economy of that country is very bad I think that the inflation will take over and the price of food items increase to a point that it will be unbelievable, I know that it is statistics of things you people put as the price tag of everything foods in your country varies from the condition of the economy of the country so and it will be different from other people's country due to the economy or inflation in that particular country.

[icalical]

There is a certain countries that the food price or items it is still okay and they affordable for people who is living there to get, unlike other other countries but what I know very well that makes the price of foods to increase in a country is as a result of inflation because when the economy of that country is very bad I think that the inflation will take over and the price of food items increase to a point that it will be unbelievable, I know that it is statistics of things you people put as the price tag of everything foods in your country varies from the condition of the economy of the country so and it will be different from other people's country due to the economy or inflation in that particular country.

Inflation does impact food prices, though it's not the sole cause of their rise. There is also climate change factor, that make extreme weather causing crops failure and lead to increase in price of food. Products such as coffee, tea, and chocolate, for instance, are getting very pricey these days, all because of climate impact. Global events also have their say: the war in Ukraine came, for example, disarraying energy supplies, hence jacking up the cost in the production and transportation of foods. That's meant sharp price hikes, with the cost of the traditional UK Christmas dinner 20% higher now compared to pre-pandemic times. As painful as inflation is, there's a lot more driving global food price jumps right now, including climate driven disasters and conflicts.

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[SmartGold01]

Hey sis from another country!
Good to have you commented here, though have been using style to search across your comments (you) but didn't, seems we haven't commented on same topic for long. Complement of the season!

Everyone forgets about the quality of the products, and this will also result in different prices.

Few other person indirectly mentioned something like this at the first page and they weren't in detailed as you have explained it. Sure, of course the quality of products determines the price in all countries and lot of people, I mean those who doesn't care about their health goes for the less expensive products, and only few people who deem care about their health status could go for the high products.

[Ultegra134]

Food prices have definitely gone up since we had the pandemic, and I can personally say that I pay at least 30% and over 100% more for food and household items than 4-5 years ago. Given that retail chains have their own brands, such products can be cheaper, but they are usually of lower quality than more well-known brands.

So I can buy 1 kg of rice for 1 EUR (a little more than $1), but the slightly better one costs at least twice as much. A kilogram of chicken that is supposedly raised without the use of antibiotics and in a natural way is over 3 EUR, while the "ordinary" one can be a little cheaper. A kilogram of trout is around 6 EUR, while a kilogram of carp is around 5 EUR, and the fish is traditionally prepared on Christmas Eve. Potatoes have become cheaper this year, a 10 kg bag costs 5 EUR (last year 7 EUR), while I am not sure about onions because I have my own and do not buy them.

For those who are interested in more, for price comparison, I put a link to two popular retail chains and their online leaflets.

1 & 2

Wow, I don't know the exact financial situation in Croatia, but the media has shown that it has one of the highest inflation rates. I'm now comparing some prices for meat, such as chicken fillet, which costs €4.49 per kg in the Kaufland leaflet, while in the average supermarket here it ranges from €8 to €10. The same applies to pork, at €3.89 per kg, while here it's up to €6. The same applies to a few salads I also noticed; they're considerably more expensive in Greece. I saw tomatoes costing up to €2.49 per kg a few days ago at Lidl; that's insane. It seems that the situation in Greece keeps worsening with those we have for government.

[Fortify]

This topic is carried out after the sudden change of food items and I want to put this together to see those who their country is less cheaper. Like I know compared to the economic crisis within our country, food Items has hike in price which even making the low/average people not to afford at least 2 square meal per/day. I went in purchase of Rice and Other food stuff and what I saw in the market isn't that pleasing neither seems amused me at all, in fact, we are totally finished due to inflation rate and almost everything changes price every single days. Do you wait till 23 DEC evening before buying all these things? Below are the prices currently, although price might differs due to location and states within my country.

Does it mean within or during Xmas period thing are far more expensive than the usual days? let us discuss..

Over the last few years since Covid, every single country has suffered inflation of varying levels and food is probably the most noticeable. I remember a year ago when prices felt like they were raising 20% each time you went to the shop, thank goodness at least in my country they have stabilized again but it shows how vulnerable we all are. You're lucky if your country is a big food exporter, because if you end up importing a lot of goods then you'll pay even more dearly. It's always good to be conscious of prices when shopping and if you have the option you can sometimes shop around, different stores are always competing on price for different products and manufacturers may even cycle offers between them. Being a savvy shopper can save you a lot of money over the long run

[o48o]

The funny thing is, a place that sell cheaper product is mostly expensive to live instead of a place that sell the same product but more expensive.

Just like in my country where the minimum wage is around $300, but the reality most jobs pays around $180, rent $90, the rest is for foods, transportation, health, etc which make people live from paycheck to paycheck.

While in first world countries, even people said the tax and rent cost is really high, but as long as you live frugal, you can save like 20%-30%.

Like i said, that's all relative. In here there's no minimum wage per se, but median wage for a cleaner, which is a lowest paying job, is around $2,3k /month, compared to doctors, which are paid $8,1K /month on average.

People are using up to 40% from that to rent, and especially when you have a high paying job, you need to pay higher rents because those jobs are located in cities with higher rents or then you pay for travelling.

Top of that there's an electricity and water bills, and everything else. We don't really pay for our health that much, because majority of those higher expenses are covered by taxes. But that can cost as well if you rather use private sector. And for our kids and people working in army, healthcare is just free, which is great.

But even for those cleaners earning $2.3k month, there's no other way to survive then live frugal. Some of them are barely getting by living from paycheck to paycheck as well, as price of food and other necessities has skyrocketed.

[shield132]

We have inflation in Iran so prices do go up but occasional price hike here depends on the goods.

Iran is a very underrated country. Many people think that Iran is a poor undeveloped country but that's not reality. We import many foods and medicines from Iran and I also know that Iran has great scientists.

I live in Indonesia, here are the price:

Rice 50kg = $46,55
Onions 1kg = $3
Chicken 1kg =$1,8
Cooking oils 4kg = $10
Full life goat = $217
One crate of malt = $9,93

Not surprising for me to see the price is similar with your country because we're live in third world countries. Inflation do hit in my country too, but the increment isn't that high, people can still afford to buy daily needs.

What's the average monthly salary in Indonesia and what's the price of rent? Does Indonesia produce food or are you mostly an importer country?
In my country, the average monthly salary is $400 but food prices are higher than in the rest of the world.

Low-quality 1 KG rice costs 1.5$ but high-quality rice costs 8$
225G Chips Lays costs 2.65$
1KG Salmon costs 50$
1KG Chicken Breast costs 6.5$
1 Liter of cooking oil costs 1.5$ on average (Sunflower oil).
One 100 gram Toblerone costs 3 USD
0.5 Liter Baileys costs 18 USD.

[MarjorieZimmermanGinger]

You could list some of the price maybe to know the area that are way cheaper, especially those in Nigeria if they are more affordable at your locations, while those abroad can as well list to compare the rate of things between the both countries.

Does it mean within or during Xmas period thing are far more expensive than the usual days? let us discuss..

I think it depends on where you live and in my area fish is much cheaper than chicken but for areas not far from where I live it is the opposite. The Christmas period might give a slightly higher price jump as usual because the demand might be greater but from what I see so far the price difference is not too far. For the price of rice it might be much more expensive in my place compared to the price you listed while for others it might be close.

When the demand increases there might be a slight increase in price but not too much different from the usual price. If you live in a village the price might be much cheaper and I don't know why that is, from some questions they said it is much cheaper to take the goods and rent the shop so they can sell the goods a little cheaper.

[EFS]

Christmas doesn't affect us because it's a Christian holiday. But like everywhere else, there are people who love to shop here to celebrate the New Year, and markets and shops usually have discounts to boost the shopping. But after the New Year, we will see price hikes. Those who live in countries with high inflation know this very well.

I don't know what you will do with 50 kg of rice, unless you are an industrial business owner. We normally buy 1 or 2 kg. Good quality rice costs around $3 a kilo, if you buy 50 kg it costs $2 a kilo, which is roughly $100. Tomatoes are around $1.5-2 a kilo. 1 kg of chicken breast costs around $5.5.
After the announcement of the new minimum wage in the new year, prices will increase by %30-40. This happens every year, so it's not a surprise.

[Oluwa-btc]

OP, the prices you mentioned are still not that high as compare to other countries. In first world countries it's not easy to acquire 50 kg rice at such low rates. I guess Iran is one of the nations where food rates are quite cheap as compared to other nations

Well the prices are just exactly how the prices of things are in my country but a little bit inflated but then this got me so worried cause alot of people can't really afford all of this  but then some countries are enjoying better low rate in the purchase of goods and services while my country this period is usually accompanied by inflated high rates of things making it difficult for people.

[fruktik]

I live in Bangladesh and here is mine,

Rice 25 kilo ~ 1600-3000 BDT (14-25$) ~ It varies based on the rice quality, the one that me and my family consumes costs around 16-17$
Potato 1 kilo ~ 65 BDT (0.55 $)
Onion 1 kilo ~ 60-70 BDT (0.60-0.70$)
Chicken per kilo ~ 160-200 BDT (1.5$)
Cooking oil ~ 5 liter ~ 800-900 BDT (7-8$)
Cow meat ~ 1 kilo ~ 700 BDT (6$)

Bangladeshi currency is called BDT. These prices may seem very cheap compared to others. But believe me it isn't! The average income of a person isn't that much here. Many can't even afford to eat cow meat these days! The general folks are badly suffering due to price hike, inflation and high cost of living! The prices of daily necessities are going out of hand day by day. Although the "Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection" are trying to break the market syndicate and control the situation but they are unable to do so properly!

You have described the situation that is happening in my country, the Russian Federation. Everything is exactly the same. It is becoming quite difficult for ordinary people to buy even essential goods due to the rapid growth of inflation risks. Consequently, prices are also increasing. In addition, our authorities do not hesitate to introduce more and more hidden taxes into the system. They do not advertise such information. This is too painful a topic for the leadership. That is how we live. It is becoming more and more difficult. Salaries are not indexed so quickly. Therefore, we have to do something else.

[Rabata]

There is a certain countries that the food price or items it is still okay and they affordable for people who is living there to get, unlike other other countries but what I know very well that makes the price of foods to increase in a country is as a result of inflation because when the economy of that country is very bad I think that the inflation will take over and the price of food items increase to a point that it will be unbelievable, I know that it is statistics of things you people put as the price tag of everything foods in your country varies from the condition of the economy of the country so and it will be different from other people's country due to the economy or inflation in that particular country.

The impact of inflation is the most severe on the countries that are import-dependent. Those that depend on other countries start to be affected faster than other countries. But those that have their production capacity in their own country or are dependent on themselves do not see much impact. However, a country is never self-sufficient in all aspects, which is why they must purchase some of their products from outside and it will definitely have an impact there, especially for the purchase of energy, many countries have to keep a huge amount of money, By increasing inflation rate which will also be added to the price of goods.

Due to inflation, almost every product in my country has an additional price. Which many people do not have the purchasing power to buy, but still they have no way of not buying those products. They spend money on those daily necessities by reducing their expenses in some other way. Unless the effect of global inflation decreases, the purchasing power of the common people will not increase.

[fruktik]

The impact of inflation is the most severe on the countries that are import-dependent. Those that depend on other countries start to be affected faster than other countries. But those that have their production capacity in their own country or are dependent on themselves do not see much impact. However, a country is never self-sufficient in all aspects, which is why they must purchase some of their products from outside and it will definitely have an impact there, especially for the purchase of energy, many countries have to keep a huge amount of money, By increasing inflation rate which will also be added to the price of goods.

Due to inflation, almost every product in my country has an additional price. Which many people do not have the purchasing power to buy, but still they have no way of not buying those products. They spend money on those daily necessities by reducing their expenses in some other way. Unless the effect of global inflation decreases, the purchasing power of the common people will not increase.

Yes, that's right. Everyone wrote simple truths of economic processes. That's how it works. Believe me, it's not only the poor class of the population that suffers from the high level of inflation risks. This is a process that is quite difficult to hide from in the modern world of finance.

A little about investments. In these inflationary conditions, even conservative investors have to decide to increase the level of risks to cover inflation. For many, this is a necessary action.

Successful countries closely monitor this indicator. They take steps to ensure that it is at minimum values.

[JunaidAzizi]

The price of any food product is not the same for all countries because some states are industrial and some are agricultural. For example, in agricultural states, the price of tomatoes will be lower compared to industrial ones. In my country, the price of 50 kg of rice is 60 dollars, as we are producing our own rice in the fields. However, the reason for the increase in price is the high taxes imposed by the government. Similarly, when we import any food products, there are government taxes, and shipping prices are also included, which contributes to the high prices. The price of one chicken is almost 4 dollars in my country because of the thousands of working farms, but when they export, the price is high for people in other states.

[justdimin]

Exactly, the price increase in yuletide seasons is just as a result of government agencies not checkmating the hike in price of things if not why would people be so wicked to increase the prices of food items when they are even supposed to reduce it...

Merchants do not just increase or reduce prices, it is based on a lot of factors like inflation, food inflation, economic stability, etc. The prices of goods and services during this festive season reflects the prevailing situation in your country, for example if inflation and food inflation was high prior to the festive time, it will reflect on the prices of goods because of the demand during this time of the year, and you can expect it to skyrocket.

We also need to be realistic and see that merchants, or whoever sells items, increase the price more than they should, just to make more profit. Assume a cafe, and lets say they sell chicken, they buy a chicken at 10 dollars, cook it and pepper it and salt it etc etc, whatever the way they do, and sell it for 20 dollars, right? Maybe more, but lets assume this as an example. You know what they do? The cost of chicken goes from 10 to 12, that's a 20% increase, huge inflation, a lot of increase, so if you are selling for 20, you could make it 24, increase it 20% too right? No, they do not do that, they instead make it 27 dollars instead.

Because, they can use inflation as excuse and make more money that way, this is exactly why food prices increased more than anything else in my nation, specially in restaurants. The bulk purchases in local grocery stores are still cheap, I can buy 1 chicken meal at a restaurant for 30 dollars these days, I can buy one chicken for 10 dollars for example, and I can buy 10 chicken for 6 dollars each. I made up the numbers, I forgot what it was, but that's how it works in general.

[Kelward]

We have inflation in Iran so prices do go up but occasional price hike here depends on the goods. Certain food items that they call "basic" (like rice, cooking oil, meat, etc.) have government monitoring them and they prevent the price from going up by giving the producers certain concessions (eg. cutting taxes). But other goods will go up and down during certain times.

For example we don't celebrate Christmas here since our New Year is on the first day of spring called Noruz but we are now close to Chelleh Night (last day of Autumn) that is celebrated in 4 days from now. So goods like certain fruits, nuts and sometimes confectionery go up. For instance today I saw that price of Persimmon has nearly doubled and is reaching $2/kilo!

I wish that the governments of most developing countries will adopt this measures like Iran, to subsidize basic food items like Rice, other locally grown grains, meat and cooking oil. It'll go a long way to make sure that there won't be hunger in the country because food items will be affordable to the poor. A country like Nigeria, needs food subsidy because the gap between the rich and poor is very wide, within two weeks we've heard about the deaths of many people during stampedes because of food. If these foods are very affordable people won't be dying because they want to get them for free. Inflation is a major economic problem in many countries and the leaders needs to be proactive to protect the poor who can't afford the high costs of items.

Even when you compare the prices of food items in your country with other countries, it won't change anything because you're still buying in your country. But it's still ok because the comparison will make you to know other countries that are buying in the same price range with your country at this time .

[LDL]

The prices of food and daily essentials have increased in all countries around the world but I think my country Bangladesh has the highest price increase in the world. The daily necessities to keep people's life and lifestyle are going beyond the purchasing limit of people. Generally those who belong to the middle and lower classes are living a very miserable life as it becomes so difficult to support their families that they are unable to provide nutritious food to their families. Generally during covid in my country the prices of food and daily essentials increased to such an extent that the price never recovered.

[pooya87]

Iran is a very underrated country. Many people think that Iran is a poor undeveloped country but that's not reality. We import many foods and medicines from Iran and I also know that Iran has great scientists.

As they say: necessity is the mother of invention. For example the more US sanctioned Iran, the more Iranians had to move toward self reliance. This is why Iran is so advanced in many sciences either on par with the rest of the world or ahead (Nano technology, stem cell research, medical engineering, space technology, ...).

I don't know what you will do with 50 kg of rice, unless you are an industrial business owner. We normally buy 1 or 2 kg.

It comes down to the cuisine. In our neck of the woods, most of the food are with rice (like rise and stew, kabab and rice) so it is consumed a lot and when you are a family of 3/4 you buy big bags and store them easily. Usually we buy 10 kg bags.
BTW Wikipedia lists a lot of our food in case anyone is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_cuisine it also has my favorite "tahdig"

I wish that the governments of most developing countries will adopt this measures like Iran, to subsidize basic food items like Rice, other locally grown grains, meat and cooking oil.

Although it has many advantages but also it has some disadvantages as well so I wouldn't be hasty in making such decisions. I can think of two main ones:

First is that it grows the government expenditure, so they'll need more budget and if they can't find additional revenues to cover that up they'll face a big deficit. And we know when governments face budget deficit, the first thing they turn to is the easiest solution which is to print money. Printing money causes inflation then everyone loses!

The other disadvantage is that over time it can create a price difference between the country paying those subsidies and its neighbors that don't. That makes smuggling very profitable that it becomes appealing despite being illegal and damaging. And then if that is not managed properly, it can turn into a big issue. I can mention two examples of such issues: with cooking oil and with petrol.

As you may recall a couple of years ago after Russian invasion of Ukraine the cooking oil price went to the moon globally. In Iran due to these subsidies the price remained low but not elsewhere. All of a sudden massive amounts of cooking oil were being smuggled out of the country that it turned it into a national security threat. It was managed rather well by changing the way subsidy was paid (paid to the customer instead of the producer).

But the issue with petrol/gasoline is not yet solved. Price still remains super low at 2 cents ($0.02) per liter! While it is a lot higher in Iran's neighboring countries like $1.22 in Turkey, $0.9 in Pakistan, $0.68 in UAE, etc. It is obvious that it will be smuggled to these places because it is super profitable to do so. That's like 6000% profit to smuggle it to Turkey
Consequently Iran is now facing a petrol shortage, and the problem hasn't been solved yet...

The point is, it is not always a good decision to give subsidies. At least not in the long run.

[mindrust]

Invest in food stocks maybe? If these products look expensive to you, maybe the manufacturer of these products are making good profits? Have you made any research? That’s the only way to protect yourself from inflation in the long run. (Other than investing in btc)

Food, water, energy etc make yourself a good defensive portfolio that pay dividends and you won’t worry about it.

The other option is growing your own vegetables. Some of them veggies grow fairly easy. You may try it if you have a garden. Even a small one will work wonders.

[JiiBs]

OP, the prices you mentioned are still not that high as compare to other countries. In first world countries it's not easy to acquire 50 kg rice at such low rates. I guess Iran is one of the nations where food rates are quite cheap as compared to other nations and as pooya87 said that 1 KG chicken cost $1.3 and that's pretty cheap. In my area the rate of chicken meat is around $1.80 per KG and still that's cheap because in United States it's over $5 per KG of chicken meat if I'm not wrong.

Thats true. Most times you hear the third world countries complain about inflated prices of goods and services but isn’t really the same with developed nations no. That’s because, most developed countries have provided the means for its citizens. The means to getting an income is the major difference and even then, not every one gets the chance to make something for themselves. In third world countries, the lack of means to making an income makes things a lot more worst. Not because the products are over priced but, your require to make expenses and not have the means to get the money for it.