Food inflation is experiencing further increases in Belgium. The product categories impacted by these increases are varied.
Food inflation increased slightly between August (2.5%) and September (2.76%)according to calculations published Thursday by Testachats on a basket of more than 3,000 basic products in 7 supermarket chains. It is the 3rd consecutive increase in inflation since Junewhere it amounted to 2.31%.
The product categories with the most growth are refreshing drinks (+7%), fruits (+6%), vegetables (+5%) and grocery products (+4%)according to the consumer organization.
When we look more closely, and just like the previous month, we find dark chocolate (+28%) and olive oil (+27%) among the products with the strongest growth in one year. The 100g dark chocolate bar now costs 1.52 euros, compared to 1.05 euros in September 2022. A liter of olive oil currently costs 13.01 euros, compared to 9.58 euros two years ago.
Orange juice is also on an upward curve since a liter cost 1.74 euros in September 2022, compared to 2.36 euros last month (+21%). This is due to poor harvests.
Moreover, butter seems to be starting a slight increase. On international markets, the price has already increased and this increase is slowly starting to be felt in supermarkets, analyzes Testachats. Butter is now 2% more expensive than last year, while inflation was still negative two months ago.
Product categories with the biggest decline are paper products (paper towels, tissues and toilet paper) and other food films (aluminum film, plastic film) (-2%) and cleaning products (-0.2%). The products that have declined the most over the past year are wet wipes (-13%) and fresh salmon (-11%).
The Testachats basket of products is still 27% more expensive than in January 2022a month during which inflation exceeded 2% for the first time. Ketchup is thus 83% more expensive than in January 2022, olive oil 66% more expensive, potatoes 53% more expensive and orange juice 47% more expensive.
