A plate of spaghetti pasta with Carbonara sauce in Italy.
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Whether it’s a plate of spaghetti aglio e olio or penne arrabbiata, the price of Italy’s beloved staple is soaring — enough to warrant a crisis meeting at the heart of the Italian government.
Pasta prices rose 17.5% in March and 16.5% in April, according to Italy’s ministry of business which cited Istat data. The jump is double that of Italy’s consumer price index figures, which climbed 8.1% year-on-year for April and 8.7% for March, according to Refinitiv data.
Pasta dishes in restaurants have risen 6.1% across the board year-on-year, Italy’s consumer rights group Assoutenti told CNBC. According to a 2022 survey by the International Pasta Organization, an average Italian consumes almost 23 kg worth of pasta per year.
The elevated retail prices are owed to the fact that producers are now selling their pasta stocks which were made when the raw material costs were higher.
“This is due to the disposal of stocks produced with higher costs of raw materials,” Assoutenti’s President Furio Truzzi said, citing higher wheat and energy prices.
In March 2022, the price of wheat peaked to its highest levels in more than a decade as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine advanced. Both nations are huge suppliers of agricultural products to the global market.
However, Truzzi noted that the input costs have since dropped since that time, and higher pasta prices are now driven by other factors.
“High prices are maintained in order to have greater profits. Prices will fall only in the face of a significant drop in consumption,” said Assoutent, proposing plans to reduce pasta consumption with a “pasta strike” of at least 15 days. In 2007, Italians staged a one-day strike against buying pasta when prices rose by almost 20%.
International wheat prices in April lost 2.3% to drop to their lowest since July 2021, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization.
“Wheat prices have been…
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