The rise in food prices in Czech shops is one of the fastest in Europe. The Ministry of Agriculture (MZe) does not carry out the controls that the head of the Ministry, Zdeněk Nekula (KDU-ČSL), announced in April this year.
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is supposed to carry out checks on food prices and retailers’ margins, but it does not plan to do so.
According to the Czech Statistical Office (CSO), agricultural producer prices, which typically forecast consumer prices, increased by 42.5 percent in June. According to the CSO, food prices in stores increased by 18% year on year in June.
According to Eurostat, food, alcohol, and tobacco prices in the Czech Republic rose by 14.3 percent year-on-year in June, compared with an average of 9.9 percent across the EU and even less than nine percent in the eurozone.
The prices of food products in this country are rising rapidly, although the costs of fuel and some commodities on world markets, such as grain, have been falling in recent weeks.
However, prices of agricultural commodities are not solely based on fuel prices but also on other inputs such as feed, energy, fertilizer, human labor, and others, which then determine the final price of each commodity.
In June, the price of flour increased by 70 percent year on year. Bread increased by 28.6 percent, poultry meat by one-third, semi-skimmed long-life milk increased by 42.3 percent, butter increased by 55.8 percent, edible oils increased by 58.7 percent, and sugar increased by 41.3 percent.