Month: June 2024

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More on farm-retail price spreads during food price inflation

My previous blog post dealt with trends in the farm-retail price spread at the aggregate food basket level in EU Member States (both for food purchases for at home consumption and for food consumption away from home) based on a new FAOSTAT data series on the food value chain. A key conclusion was that farmers’ share of consumer spending on food tends to fall over time because of the increased quantity and quality of the marketing services added to farm raw materials as living standards rise. A falling farm share in every euro spent on food at retail or food service level is not necessarily an indicator that there is unequal bargaining power and thus an unfair distribution of value added along the food value chain, although neither does it rule out that possibility.… Read the rest

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Distribution services take more than half of spending on food at home in EU countries

Anger over the gap between farm and retail food prices has been one of the factors behind the farm protests earlier this year. Particularly when  prices at farm level move in the opposite direction to retail prices – more specifically, when retail food prices increase even when farm prices are falling so that margins are increasing – there is suspicion that more powerful players in the food chain are exploiting a period of price volatility for their own benefit. There is a strong belief among stakeholders that farmers’ remuneration can be improved if changes are made to the operation of the food value chain (all of the downstream actors up to and including consumers).… Read the rest