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As announced last year, this year I am focusing on food prices. The first candidate, since its prices have been particularly criticized, is sunflower oil.
Butter is a popular product in Swiss kitchens. Its price on the world market temporarily increased sharply due to the war in Ukraine. It peaked in the spring of 2022, then fell back relatively quickly. The price is now 40 percent below the January 2022 level, that is, lower than before the war in Ukraine.
Since we import 90 percent of our sunflower oil to Switzerland, it is not surprising that we are also watching rising prices on the world market. And yet something strange:
The price on the world market fell again for a while. In Germany, this is also reflected in the price tags: if in the summer of 2023 a liter of sunflower oil cost 1.99 euros in a large supermarket chain, today it is 50 cents cheaper – despite strong inflation and suspicions that do not yet exist. It has been debunked that German retailers are temporarily compensating for distortions, possibly using profit optimization. The price for our northern neighbor is lower than before the war in Ukraine.
The price on the world market has fallen, prices in Germany have fallen, and prices in Switzerland? They keep growing! Here, a liter of sunflower oil now costs 20 percent more than before the war in Ukraine.
The big question is: why are our prices rising for a product that is mainly imported when the price on the world market has fallen?
Is it because competition here is much weaker than elsewhere due to the strong market positions of Coop and Migros? Or, at most, is there a specific problem in the value chain?
I’ve been researching similar questions about organic food for the past year and haven’t (yet) found any satisfactory answers. So I started a continuation of this challenge, which now includes all the products. I look forward to seeing the results and hope that no unnecessary obstacles come my way in this endeavor.
Source: Blick
I am David Miller, a highly experienced news reporter and author for 24 Instant News. I specialize in opinion pieces and have written extensively on current events, politics, social issues, and more. My writing has been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC News. I strive to be fair-minded while also producing thought-provoking content that encourages readers to engage with the topics I discuss.
