German supermarket chains including Aldi and Lidl have announced they will be significantly raising prices on some goods, such as cooking oils and other food products due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
The German supermarket chains have indicated that due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, they will be increasing the prices of some goods as the renewed conflict has had a significant impact on global commodity prices.
Some prices are set to rise as much as 30 per cent, and in some cases as much as 50 per cent this week, and newspaper Berliner Zeitung reports the items impacted will include: “cooking oil, butter and margarine… also chocolate, crisps, preserves, sausage, spreads and cheese”.
“Due to the situation on the world markets, we will experience jumps in sales prices that have never been seen before,” Managing Director Communications at Aldi North Florian Scholbeck said and added, “There will be no empty shelves.”
Erik Döbele, national head of purchasing at Aldi South, meanwhile, stated that Aldi does not plan to ration any goods or limit the number of items people can purchase, but Lidl stated that own-brand products such as cooking oil and canned food, would have limits per customer as the demand for the items remains high.
The Federal Association of the German Food Trade’s spokesman Christian Böttcher also recently called on German consumers to limit their purchases to what they need in order to have solidarity with others so that store shelves do not become bare.
Many have wanted about the economic impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, particularly its effect on the agricultural industry, as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of food, as well as items needed to produce fertilizers.
Swedish farmers may be forced to reduce their harvests by half due to a shortage of manure and fertilizers from Russia and Ukraine and are also said to be struggling with rising costs of energy, such as diesel fuel.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as a security official, warned that Russia may also limit food exports to countries deemed “unfriendly” and said countries may have to pay partially for commodities in Russian rubles, as well as their local currency.