Food prices in Europe: Where are grocery costs rising fastest?

Anyone who walked into a supermarket in Naples or anywhere else in southern Italy in late October may have found the fruit aisle half empty. For about two weeks, lorry drivers, angry about the cost of diesel, blocked roads and ports across southern Italy. Warehouses stopped loading, and shelves of meat, fresh milk, fruit and bottled water in Campania, Puglia and Calabria emptied, in some small shops within a day.

In October, unprocessed food in Italy cost 7. 5% more than a year earlier, up from 5. 5% in September, according to preliminary figures from the national statistics office Istat.

Prices for the typical shopping basket of food, household and personal care goods rose 2. 5%, up from 1. 5%.

Italy is an extreme case. But it points to something happening across Europe: after a quiet year, the weekly shop is starting to get more expensive again. Energy took the headlines while food stayed modestInflation in the eurozone reached 4% in October, the highest in more than three years, according to preliminary figures released by Eurostat on Wednesday.

Energy was the main driver. Fuel, electricity and heating were 20. 8% more expensive than a year earlier.

Food prices, by comparison, have risen much more slowly. Prices of food, alcohol and tobacco rose 1. 6% in the eurozone in October compared with a year earlier.

Across the EU as a whole, food and soft drinks were just 0. 6% dearer in September, the latest month with figures for every country. Look closer, though, and the picture is uneven.

Prices of processed food, alcohol and tobacco rose only 0. 5% in October compared with a year earlier. Unprocessed food prices, covering items such as fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, rose 4.

6%, up from 2. 7% in August. "Energy and food drove the increase in prices, while core inflation remains broadly stable despite the ongoing energy shock," Nicola Nobile, chief Italy economist at Oxford Economics, said in emailed comments.

It makes sense when you think about how food reaches the shelf. Tractors run on diesel, greenhouses need heating, and almost everything travels by lorry. When those costs jump, fresh produce, which cannot sit in a warehouse for months, can be particularly exposed.

Big economies show the same splitIn France, food prices overall rose 1. 2% in October. Fresh products, however, were 8% more expensive than a year earlier, according to the statistics office INSEE, down from 9.

5% in September. In Germany, food was only 0. 4% dearer.