Not so long ago, cheap meat dominated the social debate about food.

Chicken thighs for 20 cents per 100 grams were an example of an industry that was accused of unfair price dumping and was quoted right up to the chancellery at the crisis summit.

As recently as December last year, the Green Minister of Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, criticized the "junk prices" in the food retail sector, in line with old official tradition.

Jessica von Blazekovic

Editor in Business.

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Just under four months later, the tide has turned.

For the first time in a long time, food prices are rising so much that Özdemir now even wants to support low-income households at the supermarket checkout.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, food prices rose by an average of 6.2 percent in March of this year compared to the same month last year.

Noodles: up 17.5 percent.

Sunflower oil: plus 30 percent.

Tomatoes: up 44 percent.

However, the current price hikes could only be a taste of what consumers can expect at the supermarket checkout as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The war is accelerating a pre-existing trend of rising food prices.

In addition, the war-related cost increases are probably still in the supply chains, because producers and manufacturers usually have long-term supply contracts and price increases only reach the end customer with a delay.

However, it is still unclear whether consumers will also have to spend more of their disposable income on groceries.

So far, figures are only available up to 2020.

At that time, the proportion of spending on food, beverages and tobacco products was around 10 percent.

But one thing is certain:

Demand and supply always play a role

While factors such as the Ukraine war are directly driving up food prices, there are also structural developments that have been making food more expensive for some time.

It's all about the principle of supply and demand.

Not only is the world population growing and with it the number of people who have to be fed.

Global prosperity is also growing, which is having an impact on eating habits.

As per capita income increases, people consume fewer plant products and more animal products.

The increased demand for meat, in turn, entails a greater need for wheat and oilseeds for animal feed than a plant-based diet.

At the same time, climatic changes in important growing regions are increasingly leading to crop failures, as was the case recently in Canada and Brazil.

But the world market also influences prices in this country.

A look at the inventories of the most important wheat exporters Argentina, Australia, Canada, the EU, Ukraine, Russia and the USA shows that supply cannot keep up with demand: since 2016 they have fallen as sharply as they were last since the financial crisis of 2008. In the same period, the price of wheat rose by around 60 percent.

The Ukraine war is fueling this development further, since a large part of the wheat exports come from Ukraine and Russia.