July the 18th, 2024 – Inflation has done a number on just about everything in Croatia. Is a slowdown in Croatian food and drink prices now finally on the horizon? One industry expert says so.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jolanda Rak Sajn writes, agriculture and food industry expert Zvjezdana Blažić has claimed that consumer prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages grew more slowly in May, by 2.8 percent compared to a year earlier. Croatian food and drink prices then grew by a mere 0.2 percent compared to April.
a massive 44% increase in some croatian food and drink prices since 2015
However, if we look at the situation for Croatian food and drink prices for longer time period, more specifically from June 2023 to May 2024, then the growth is significant – standing at 7.8 percent. Compared to 2015, that growth has in some cases reached a staggering 44 percent, revealed Blažić.
“Bread prices also increased in May this year by 2.8 percent, while a drop in bread prices was recorded in several other EU countries, for example in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Hungary. Meat prices in this country are growing by an average of 4.2 percent on an annual basis, while at the EU level, growth of 1.6 percent was recorded. In Croatia, the prices of pork rose the most of all, more than 7 percent, and the smallest increase was recorded for chicken, at just 0.3 percent.
In contrast to meat, where price growth is still very much in evidence, the prices of fresh milk and dairy products are slowly falling. For example, the prices of butter are lower now. Egg prices are also continuously falling. The growth of fruit prices is now more or less at the level of the European Union average, which stands at slightly less than 3 percent. The same is true for vegetables, except for potato prices, which grew by more than 11 percent.
The prices of wine and beer are rising more significantly in Croatia than in other EU Member States, which is related to growing consumption and the tourist season,” explained Blažić, who expects that the prices of certain products related to seasonal consumption will rise more than the average.
“In general, the trend of constant price slowdowns are visible.”
