Climate change and water pollution: Much of the global environmental damage is reflected in food prices - in Germany the prices for meat, milk and cheese should explode now.
Berlin
- Every week they flutter into German households: the advertising brochures of
supermarkets
and discounters.
Meat, milk, cheese and bread
- everything is on
special offer
.
According to a recent study by the
University of Augsburg
, however, those foods would actually have to cost much more * than
Aldi *
,
Lidl *
and Co. demand from their customers.
Then
milk
and
cheese
would be
almost twice as expensive - and
meat
would have
to cost three times more
in the
discounter
than at the moment.
The reason seems clear: the
climate change
and global
pollution
, the
agriculture
causes that drive
food prices
internationally in the air.
However, business
IT specialist Tobias Gaugler
and his team are
currently not
taking
climate
damage
into account in their calculations
.
On behalf of the
Rewe Group
, Gaugler determined the “true costs” for a total of 16
Penny
own-brand
products
.
In addition to the “normal” production costs, the
Augsburg
scientists only
looked at the
effects of the greenhouse gases generated during production, the consequences of over-fertilization and the energy requirement.
So far we have only considered part of the hidden costs, but that alone shows that the prices are lying - some more and some less.
Tobias Gaugler, business IT specialist
Serious price shock: do organic products fare better?
The results are shocking:
meat and animal products in
particular
would have to be
sold at a significantly higher price,
taking into account the
“hidden” costs
.
If the study is to be believed, the
discounter
would have to
sell
Penny
meat from conventional farming with a hefty price increase of 173 percent.
That means: The 500 gram pack of mixed
minced meat
would have to cost an impressive 7.62 euros instead of 2.79 euros.
Even
dairy products
would "normally" far more expensive, so the price of
whole milk
by 122 percent and for
Gouda
would have to climb by 88 percent.
The "true prices" for
fruit
and
vegetables
come off relatively well in the study: The price for
bananas
would increase by 19 percent, the
price for
apples by
only eight percent. Especially for
organic buyers
the question arises as to whether theirs Products would do better than the conventional offer. The researchers can say yes, but even
organic meat
should actually cost around 126 percent more than before.
What should #foods actually cost if their ecological effects along the supply chain are included in the sales price?
#PENNY shows #TrueCosts for its first products: https://t.co/RTBVhaL7WW @uni__augsburg
- REWE Group (@rewe_group) September 1, 2020
Rewe plans the “real price” on the price tag
Today
Rewe
opens
a new branch of its
discounter chain Penny
in
Berlin
- the special thing about it is that it is a "
sustainability market
" that actually writes the "true prices" on its labels. Of course, in addition to the conventional prices and only at each eight out of a total of 3500 conventionally and ecologically produced products.It is important for those responsible to take a first step towards
sustainability
and to show the customer the
follow-up costs of
their
consumption
.
Only when the buyer sees that he is
buying long
-life milk
for 79 cents, but that it would de facto cost 1.75 euros, can he make
a more conscious
purchase decision
in the
future
*.
Rewe
manager Stefan Magel also admits, as the DPA reports, “As a company in a highly competitive market, we are without a doubt part of the problem.” But he hopes that his current project will be part of a solution. The
customer will
respond positively the
double pricing
, the promotion would be extended to other products and also offered in other
Penny markets
.
Puls4-Video: Will not eating meat save the climate?
The Augsburg scientists also hope that the “
double price
” will change the
consumer
. The high
consequential environmental costs
could be
gradually added to
food
prices
, for example by taxing CO2 emissions and nitrogen fertilizers in
agriculture
. In the
opinion of the researchers, the
supermarkets
would then probably
offer
more
organic products and meat-free products *
and at the same time
significantly reduce
the
environmental damage
.
(cos / dpa) * Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital network.