Inflation bites and is not just a record for energy prices and flights with international ones which, in one year, mark a +113.2 percent. Even in the shopping cart the bills add up less and less with butter, sugar, rice at the top for price increases. Stangate that therefore concern primary goods.
If the energy of the free market is at its maximum with the price quadrupling (+ 329%) compared to October 2021, in the top 40 – drawn up by the National Consumers Union – oil other than olive oil rises strongly, which with + 56.1% wins for food. Not less is butter with + 42.9% Then sugar (+ 35.9% on October 2021) and rice (+ 30.6%).
Increases for almost all groceries
In reality, if you expand your search range, slalom between the aisles of supermarkets, it is difficult to find something that has not increased. This is the case not only of bread (+ 15.9%) but also of preserved milk (+ 29.4%), margarine (+ 28.2%), fresh vegetables (+ 25.1%), flour (+ 23.7%). Not to mention pasta (fresh, dry and pasta preparations), which marks a + 22.5%, eggs (+ 18.7%), fresh partially skimmed milk (+ 18.3%), poultry ( + 18%), frozen vegetables (+ 15.3%) and fresh whole milk (+ 14.8%).
Overall, food goods rose by 13.5% compared to last year, which is equivalent – according to Codacons – to a higher annual expenditure, only for food, equal to +1,011 euros for a household with two children. For consumers, faced with this situation, the only way to follow is that of structural measures capable of producing long-term effects, starting with the cut in VAT on food and basic necessities which would produce an immediate effect on retail price lists.
Unc: average price increases per family 975 euros per year
“Not only does inflation not slow down its course, but it accelerates exponentially, with a jump of 3.5% in just a month, which in terms of the increase in the cost of living means a sting on an average equal family – he notes Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Consumers Union – at 975 euros on an annual basis, 107 for food and drinks, 874 for homes, electricity and fuels. If we then consider the trend inflation, equal to + 11.9%, the annual blow flies on average to 3,324 euros: 2,016 for the home, 761 for food and drink ».
For the electricity bill alone, the expenditure of a typical family reaches 1,782 euros in 2022, over 660 euros more – warns the Codacons – compared to the expenditure incurred in 2021, while for gas it will be necessary to wait for the new tariffs that will be communicated in a few days from Arera, the Energy Authority. The National Consumers Union asks the Government to postpone the end of the expiry date of the protected gas market scheduled for January 1, 2023 and at the same time to intervene also on the electricity market, given that for micro-enterprises it expires precisely with the start of the new year. “In a moment of crazy prices, it is necessary to maintain both the role of sole Buyer and of Arera, for the setting of reference prices, a function which, as the gap between the free and the protected, demonstrates, is fundamental”, underlines Dona.