Butter, milk and yoghurt could soon become more expensive: "It's getting really scarce"

Created: 04/14/2022, 21:17

By: Nadja Austel

Many food prices have risen massively as a result of the Ukraine conflict.

Now it hits the milk - and with higher prices than "ever before".

Frankfurt – The price increases for groceries in Germany* had already made themselves clearly felt in many supermarkets and discounters such as Aldi,* Lidl* and Edeka*.

In many places, however, items are not only becoming expensive, they are also becoming scarce, as was already the case with sunflower oil in many supermarkets.

Dairy products such as butter have also been hit by price increases,* but now dairy prices are set to rise again.

"Prices are rising to an extent that I have never experienced before," said Eckhard Heuser, general manager of the Dairy Industry Association, of the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, adding: "Milk is becoming really scarce." cracked in 2007, reports the Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (AMI).

Adi, Lidl and Edeka: Food prices in the supermarket are increasing – is milk also becoming more expensive?

According to the Institute for Nutritional Science (Ife) in Kiel, the market milk value will rise to 65 cents per kg this week, says Olaf Zinke, agricultural market expert at the online information portal Agrarheute.

That is around 7 cents more than two weeks ago and the highest level ever reached. Milk prices had never been this high before, the expert continued.

Organic milk, hardly bearable for producers under price pressure?

(Iconic image) © Patrick Seeger/dpa

Why is that?

The milk value chain is currently struggling with a whole series of problems.

According to Zinke, the raw material milk itself is already in short supply.

Added to this is the exploding cost of energy, transport and raw materials, which farmers are struggling with.

As a result, all agricultural products once again became significantly more expensive.

Food prices are rising at Aldi, Lidl and Edeka – why is milk hitting it so hard?

It is becoming increasingly expensive for dairies to have milk delivered and processed.

Meanwhile, it is becoming more and more expensive for the farmers to produce milk at all, because the explosion in energy, fuel and feed costs is also hitting them with full force.

The cost pressure hits everyone involved, and it ultimately ends up with the consumer in the form of price increases.

According to Lebensmittel-Zeitung, another problem in the value-added chain for milk is the loss of flows of goods from Ukraine.

In particular, when it comes to non-GMO animal feed such as rapeseed, Germany has previously imported up to three million tons a year.

Milk price: Further increases in food prices to be expected, also possible at Aldi and Co

According to Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (AMI), the cheapest 250-gram pack of branded butter currently costs 2.09 euros, which is 44 percent more than a year ago.

"I assume that the price will continue to rise," says Heuser.

A liter of UHT milk currently costs 0.98 cents, but he expects a price of more than one euro in the coming months.

"It has never been so lucrative to quit as it is now," the Lebensmittel-Zeitung quoted a producer representative as saying on the sidelines of the 12th Berlin Milk Forum at the end of last week in Berlin, referring to the record prices that butchers pay for cows.

Thousands of smaller farms that are no longer able or willing to invest in animal welfare in order to meet the increasing demands of trade and politics would therefore think of giving up.

(na)