Lately, when I visit my local grocery store in Vancouver, I find it hard to leave without dropping $60 to $80 — often on just a few items.
It’s a problem Canadians across the country have been facing this year amid soaring inflation rates paired with an oligopoly in the grocery sector — it’s led to sticker shock in the produce section and calls for Canada’s biggest food retailers to bring prices down.
So when I visited Germany, Spain, and Portugal on holiday this month, I was curious to see if post-COVID-19 inflation was also wreaking havoc at grocery stores here — after all, the continent also saw sky-high inflation this year, with it peaking at 10.6% in October 2022.
Although I did hear many tales of how prices have increased since COVID-19 (beer rising from its decade-steady price of €1 per sleeve in one Spanish village, for example), my own grocery hauls were much more affordable than in Canada.
I’ll give one example to start. My friends and I had a three-day long stay booked in a Spanish village. We needed meals and booze for the six of us with not many restaurants around. On the menu? Yogurt parfaits for the early risers, bacon and eggs for brunch, cured meats, cheese, and fruit for snack, and adobo pork belly for dinner (leftovers to be turned into fried rice the following day).
The entire cart at Spanish grocer Dia, including beer, wine, and some toiletries, came to €110. That’s about C$160. I don’t know about you, but I can easily spend that on food for just myself for a week back in Canada, never mind a few bottles of wine on top. So we were pleased.
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Granted, salaries are generally lower in Spain than in Canada — so we aren’t comparing apples to apples. On average, Spaniards make just over C$2,600 per month before taxes (€500 lower than the average of all EU countries). Portugal is even lower at the equivalent of C$1,650 per month.
By contrast, the average annual salary of C$54,000 in Canada breaks down to C$4,500 before taxes each month.
Although grocery prices here may look cheaper to tourists like me, people here are dealing with their own grocery struggles. According to the publication Trading Economics, Spain’s food inflation rate held steady at just over 2% for 20 years, before hitting an all-time high of nearly 17% in early 2023.
The story is even more pronounced in Portugal, where this spring food prices marked a 30% increase from where they were a year ago. Government officials confirmed a €74.90 cart of groceries in January 2022 would cost €96.44 in spring 2023.
In Lisbon, an apple from a small grocer costs the equivalent of C$1.35 (€0.93) — not far off from the C$1.50 it would cost at home, where salaries are higher.
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Germany too is dealing with high food inflation — in May, grocery prices were increasing at a rate of 15% compared with the 6% overall inflation rate.
A grocery haul from Berlin that cost the equivalent of $35 CAD (Submitted)
My friend who lives in Berlin shared this photo of all the groceries he got for just C$35 (€24). It looks like a decent haul to a Vancouverite like me, but he said he’s also witnessed prices creep up in the last year. For example, he remembers apples being €2.49 per kilogram in March, and they’re €2.99 per kilogram now.
So turns out you can travel far and wide without escaping food inflation. It’s not a uniquely Canadian problem, although it’s painfully noticeable here.
Are grocery prices any better where you are? Let us know in the comments.
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