INFLATION: FOUR OUT OF TEN ITALIANS CHANGED EATING HABITS IN 2008. COLDIRETTI: 5 BILLION MORE WAS SPENT AT DINNER TABLES FOR THE SAME QUANTITY. RECORD PRICE HIKES FOR PASTA

In 2008, 4 out of 10 Italians (37%) changed their eating habits because of food scandals and price hikes. This was the recent confirmation made by Italian agricultural organization Coldiretti with the use of ISTAT data on inflation rates in December and on the basis of the “2008 Coldiretti/SWG Survey: The Opinions on Food of Italians and Europeans”.

In 2008, Coldiretti estimates that Italian families spent 5 billion euros more in food acquisitions, but the quantity on dinner tables remained the same due to the effects of unjustifiable price hikes for primary agricultural materials. The most alarming case is that of pasta, which has registered a record increase in prices in 2008 regardless of the fact that wheat has actually fallen below prices of 20 years ago. This has also created a dramatic situation in countrysides where production costs can no longer be covered.

On average, based on Ismea-Ac Nielsen data, an increase of 3.8% has been registered in spending for food acquisitions while quantities have remained almost exactly the same (+0.3%). The change in prices has provoked – continued Coldiretti – variations in the make up of spending over the first 9 months of 2008: bread consumption has gone down (-2.5%), as well as beef (-0.5%), and cheese (-0.6%), while chicken acquisitions have increased (+3.2%), along with pork and cold cuts (+22.3%), milk (+1.8%), fresh fruit (+2.8%), and vegetables (+0.1%).

Worry over the safety of foods has pushed products to higher quality levels and the percent of Italians who regularly bought denomination of origin products has increased by 8% (now reaching 28% of total), while organic food acquisition has increased by 23% though the overall total still remains lower (16%).

The Coldiretti/Swg survey also revealed that, along with the increase in prices, worry over the contamination of foods has also been a problem with, for example, the 2008 scandals of melamine in Chinese milk, the dioxins in Irish pork, and rotten fish in Italy confiscated by police over New Year’s.
According to Coldiretti, it is mainly the need to save and the desire for more security that has provoked the change in how and where Italians buy food and their attention to packaging labels.

The average monthly food costs for an Italian family are, on average, 466 euros, 107 euros of which goes towards meat products, 84 euros for fruits and vegetables, 79 euros for pasta and bread, 62 euros for milk, eggs, and cheese, 42 euros for fish, 32 euros for sugar, sweets and coffee, 42 euros for beverages, and 18 euros for oils and other fats.
Sales have fallen in specialized shops while supermarkets remain stable, and local markets and direct sales from producers have increased.
There has been, in fact, a boom in this sector with an increase of 8% in sales, reaching a total of 2.7 billion euros, justified by the fact that, according to the Coldiretti/Swg survey, the majority of Italians (48%) believe the increase in costs are caused by intermediaries between producers and consumers.

For each euro spent on food products by consumers Coldiretti denounced that a good 60 cents goes to commercial distribution, 23 to the food industry and only 17 cents goes to the farmer. This clearly shows that costs rise on average 5 times in their passage from the field to the table. And this trend seems to have increased in 2008. Coldiretti believes that it is necessary to work harder to make the process clearer and more direct with, for example, labels of origin on goods, as well as intervening directly in the production process.



Italian Spending Per Month Divided by Food Products

Meat - 107 euros

Bread, pasta, and cereals - 79 euros

Milk, cheese, and egg - 62 euro

Fruit, vegetables, and potatoes - 84 euros

Fish - 42 euros

Sugars, sweets, and coffee - 32 euros

Beverages - 42 euros

Oils and fats - 18 euros

Total - 466 euros

Source: Coldiretti study based on Istat data