The price of food does not stop rising and in July it did so by 0.8% compared to the previous month, reaching a year-on-year increase of 10.8%. This category also continues to be the one that explains to a greater extent, together with fuels and tourist packages, the rebound in inflation as a whole, which stood at 2.3% last month, four tenths more than a month earlier, according to data published today by the INE.
All the food groups analyzed by the statistics institute have risen in price in the last year, although there are some that do so in a particularly significant way, often due to drought and increased costs at source.
What rises the most is sugar, 44% in July compared to the same month of the previous year, after the price per ton, which is listed on international markets, has consolidated above 500 euros after the invasion of Ukraine .
Olive oil is the second most expensive product in year-on-year terms, 39%, and in the last four annual campaigns its price has already multiplied by 2.5, according to the latest weekly bulletin from the Ministry of Agriculture. The liter is on average at 7 euros.
This product raises its price above the group of oils and fats, which experience an increase of 20%, milk, 17%, potatoes, 16% and pork, 15%.
All of them head a classification in which prices do not give concessions. As a slight consolation, cereals, with 1.2%, fish, with 3.8%, poultry meat, with another 3.8%, and bread, with 4.9%, are the ones that fewer do. Only one of them, cereals, registers price increases below inflation.
In July, compared to June, the rise in fruit prices has been striking. In just one month, 8.8% have done so, above any other product, food or not, analyzed by the INE. Oil, with 3.4%, lags behind.
The Government has adopted different measures to contain the effect of the rise in food on consumers, especially the reduction of VAT to 0% among basic necessities and the reduction of this tax from 10% to 5% on pasta or oils.
The question was whether the supermarkets are correctly transferring this drop in VAT to the final price, but the CNMC has just dispelled it by publishing a report in which it concludes that the distributors are indeed acting correctly. The measure will be in force at least until the end of the year as long as underlying inflation, which does not include energy or fresh food, remains above 5.5%.
The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has demanded today that the acting Government raise the amount of the check of 200 euros for families with incomes of less than 27,000 euros "urgently and substantially", as well as the number of beneficiaries, through an increase in income limits.
