After the substantial increases over 2022, food prices continued to rise in the first quarter of 2023, with oils and fats among the products with high price increases. Data for March 2023 show that the price of oils and fats in the EU was, on average, 23% higher than in March 2022, reads the recent publication of EUrostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
The peak in the annual rate of change occurred in December 2022 (+32% compared with December 2021), indicating a 9 percentage points (pp) decrease over the first three months of 2023. This suggests that the rate of inflation for oils and fats is starting to slow down.
For comparison: the increase in prices for oils and fats recorded between March 2021 and March 2022 was +18%, and between March 2020 and March 2021 it was +1%.
In March 2023, almost all the EU countries reported an increase in annual inflation for oils and fats. The highest increase in annual inflation for oils and fats was recorded in Hungary (+33% compared with March 2022), followed by Denmark (+32%) and Belgium (+31%). In contrast, the smallest price increases were recorded in Croatia (+6%), Austria (+12%) and Czechia (+16%), with Bulgaria being the only country to report a decrease (-1%).
