Grocery prices still rising; Soft drinks, chocolate, olive oil much more expensive

Skyrocketing food prices are behind us, but Dutch consumers are still paying more for some groceries. The prices of soft drinks, chocolate, olive oil, and peanut butter increased sharply in recent months. Bad harvests are to blame in many cases, NU.nl reports after analyzing supermarket prices, excluding promotions and special offers.

Bad cocoa and olive harvests were behind the price increases for chocolate and olive oil. A 200-gram bar of Côte d’Or pure costs almost 50 cents more at Albert Heijn, Jumbo, and Plus than at the start of the year. That’s a price increase of 12 percent. A Tony Cocolonely caramel sea salt bar costs 95 cents more at Jumbo and 54 cents more at Plus. Albert Heijn implemented that price increase last year.

A liter of house-brand extra virgin olive oil is now almost 20 percent more expensive at the Dutch supermarkets than at the beginning of this year. The price of 500 ml of Bertolli Classico increased by almost 40 percent at Jumbo and Plus. That’s on top of last year’s price increase when this brand of olive oil became 14 percent more expensive.

The price of a 350-gram jar of Calvé peanut butter increased by 20 cents at Albert Heijn to 3.19 euros, 52 cents at Jumbo to 3.13 euros, and 44 cents at Plus to 3.19 euros.

Consumers also pay more for iced tea, fruit juice, non-alcoholic beer, and oat milk, partly due to the introduction of the soft drink tax at the beginning of the year. Compared to January, these products are up to 10 percent more expensive in July.

Shrinkflation - in which products become smaller instead of more expensive - is still a widely used tactic, NU.nl found. A tub of Becel margarine, a pack of Ola Cornettos, a bag of Lays chips, and a bag of M&Ms have all become slightly cheaper in recent months. But those packages also now contain less, so proportionally, you pay more for the same product.

Over the past year, groceries have become approximately 9 percent more expensive, according to GfK, which constantly monitors 70 basic products. “But in recent months, prices have barely increased on average,” GfK researcher Norman Buysse said. “The causes of this, such as high inflation, expensive energy, and wage increases, are largely over.”

Buysse expects that products influenced by harvests will continue to become more expensive and less available. “You immediately notice the impact of disappointing weather in the agricultural sector on fresh products. Spinach, for example, was often unavailable in recent months. We will see that more often,” he said, pointing to the heavy rain in the Netherlands since the autumn.

There are also products that have become cheaper over the past six months. The prices for house-brand low-fat margarine fell by approximately 8 percent, and house-brand yogurt now costs around 15 percent less. Whole-wheat bread became 10 percent cheaper at Albert Heijn and Jumbo. Stroopwafels are also 7 percent cheaper than they were in January.