Frankfurt (AFP)

Fruit, vegetables, meat ... By walking the aisles of her neighborhood supermarket in Frankfurt, Nathalie, 54, realizes that her shopping bill has jumped in a few weeks.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, "peppers have become particularly expensive," notes the German office worker.

Like her, consumers in several European countries are facing an increase in the price of fresh produce on stalls.

The reason: the pandemic restrictions imposed across the continent, which complicate production, slow supply, and increase demand.

Vegetables are particularly affected, with an increase of almost 30%, driven up by the prices of broccoli and cauliflowers, coming from Spain and France.

In this country, the association UFC Que Choisir reports an increase of 9% in the price of fruit and vegetables on average, since the start of containment measures in mid-March.

In Poland, where farmers are also facing severe drought, the price of apples, for example, has doubled in one year.

"Prices are going up every day," confirms Grazyna, a Polish pensioner, choosing pork chops from a Warsaw supermarket.

- Supply -

This increase is mainly due to the closing of the borders, which prevents the arrival of sufficient seasonal labor for the harvest in the producing countries, and increases the difficulties of international supply.

"It has become much more difficult to get a product from one country to another," says Kristjan Bragason, secretary general of the European agricultural union Effat.

Prices are also being pulled up by an increase in overall demand for fresh produce, while the closure of restaurants, cafes and canteens is forcing Europeans to cook at home.

In Italy, oranges and lemons are popular with consumers, looking for products with a high content of vitamin C to develop their immune system, reports the Italian daily "Il Messagero".

In Greece, sales of kiwi fruit and lemon have also jumped.

In some countries, on the contrary, producers and distributors have largely cashed in the rise in costs, to avoid passing it on to sales prices to consumers.

This is the case in Spain, the "pantry in Europe", where, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, these costs have not been passed on significantly to consumer prices.

"At first, prices had gone up a bit, but now they are practically the same as before," said Jesus Hernandez, who runs a fruit and vegetable stand in Madrid's most famous Cebeda market.

Same thing in Great Britain, where there has not yet been "a significant rise in prices", according to the British Retail Consortium.

- Consume local -

In other European countries, authorities and professional organizations have appealed to their citizens for culinary patriotism to help farmers cope with rising costs.

In Poland, the Polish Minister of Agriculture Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski, thus encouraged his fellow citizens to consume locally to support the producers of the country.

In France, "fruits and vegetables are more expensive because they are French fruits and vegetables," said Christiane Lambert, president of the first FNSEA agricultural union.

An injunction to "consume local" taken at their word by certain consumers. They use the pretext of confinement to start gardening themselves.

This is the case of Mariana Arandjelovic, a resident of Frankfurt, who has extended the size of her vegetable garden in recent weeks to plant potatoes, lettuce, peppers and tomatoes.

"I suspected as early as March that prices would increase," she said to AFP.

Now she looks less at price tags in supermarkets than at the weather, which will determine the fate of her upcoming harvest.

© 2020 AFP