Between the week of March 2 to 9 and the week of April 6 to 11, the price of fruits and vegetables increased on average by 9%. This is revealed by a study by UFC-Que Choisir relayed by Le Parisien and conducted in more than 4,600 drives in the country and on 116,000 prices. This increase fluctuates between 6% for traditional items and 12% for products from organic farming. Among those that have increased the most are cluster tomatoes (+ 25%), bananas (+ 12%) and grapefruit (+ 12%), all organic.
Various factors explain this rise in prices
One of the main explanations for this sharp increase is the drop in supply due to the coronavirus and containment. Certain sectors of agriculture cannot keep up with the pace and countries like Italy or Poland, which exported a lot to France, have closed their borders. Large retailers now often offer French products, of better quality but also more expensive than those from Spain or Morocco, for example.
At the same time, "transport costs soared by 30%", specifies with the Ile-de-France daily Laurent Grandin, the president of Interfel, the fruit and vegetable sector. In addition, the drives proceed to an almost systematic packaging of fresh products in order to reassure consumers in times of health crisis, a process which also increases the bill. Not to mention that labor is currently more expensive, as foreign seasonal workers cannot come to insure crops.
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