Even when they fall, food prices remain higher than before the war in Ukraine. However, to buy some of them, such as chicken or sunflower oil, an employee paid the minimum wage must work less time than in January 2022.
This Friday, November 1, the minimum wage rose to just over 1,800 euros gross per month. A further increase of 2% to cope with inflation. How to align with the rise in food prices? In supermarkets, the waltz of labels has fortunately no longer been the case for several months. Some prices have even started to fall.
But when consumers try to remember what they paid before the war in Ukraine, the general feeling is that we are far from having returned to the prices of early 2022. And for good reason. Between January 2022 and today, the minimum wage increased by 11.2%, or 0.95 euros net per hour more. An increase that farmers, manufacturers and traders must end up passing on in their prices to maintain their margins.
Last week, a kilo of Label Rouge chicken cost on average 6.34 euros, or 5.5% more than at the start of 2022.
The real question is therefore whether, with a minimum wage, you have to work longer (or not) to do your daily shopping. Everything obviously depends on what you usually put in your basket. Let's take four products that the French regularly consume: chicken, minced steak, sunflower oil and baguette.
Do chicken, minced steak, sunflower oil and baguette cost more than before the war in Ukraine?
According to weekly reports from FranceAgrimer, the kilo of Label Rouge chicken reached its highest historical level (8.13 euros on average) at the end of April 2023. Last week, it only cost 6.34 euros on average compared to a little more than 6.01 euros in mid-February 2022, an increase, in two years and nine months, of 5.5%, twice lower than that of the minimum wage.
A liter of premium sunflower oil costs 10 cents more than before the Russian invasion of Ukraine
On the other hand, when it comes to minced steak, the minimum wage is far from compensating for the 31% increase in its average price per kilo, from 11.32 euros in mid-February 2022 to 14.86 euros today, after a peak at 15.65 euros in June 2023. As for sunflower oil, we are now very far from the crazy prices caused by fears of shortages linked to the war in Ukraine.
Prices on world markets are even lower than at the time, which has led to a gradual readjustment of prices on supermarket shelves. On his blog, mass distribution specialist Olivier Dauvers noted in 2022, Carrefour would sell for 1.69 euros. Today, it stands at 1.79 euros, 6% more, almost half the increase in the minimum wage over the same period.
An employee paid the minimum wage must, like 3 years ago, work 6 minutes to buy a baguette
As for the baguette, its average price per kilo increased, according to INSEE, from 3.64 euros to 4.06 euros, an increase almost equivalent to that of the minimum wage (+11.5%). In other words, for an employee earning the minimum wage, the French's favorite bread costs the same price as before the war in Ukraine: today, as in January 2022, he must work a little more than 6 minutes to buy a baguette.
On the other hand, over the same period, we spend from 64 to 61 minutes to buy a 1.5 kilo chicken and from 12 to 11 minutes to replace the empty bottle of sunflower oil. Whereas, still with a minimum wage, today you have to work 47 minutes to buy four 125 gram minced steaks, or 7 minutes more than in February 2022. This explains, incidentally, a phenomenon observed in the fast food, where sales of fried chicken have been booming for months while those of hamburgers are declining.
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