Nahrungsmittelpreisinflation unter der Lupe : Die Preisentwicklung von landwirtschaftlichen Erzeugnissen und Nahrungsmitteln im sektoralen und gesamtwirtschaftlichen Kontext

In 2022, Germany and other countries in the world experienced a period of strong price increases not seen for a long time. Agricultural products and food, among others, were particularly affected by these price increases. This has led to many discussions on the causes and consequences of price increases in the food value chain. This study aims to provide a sound basis for such discussions. It describes the price developments and inflation trends of food in a macroeconomic context and along agricultural value chains. The last 30 years are considered. The dynamics of various price indices are analysed on the one hand, and national accounts data on the other. These allow the identification of implicit inflation rates, which show how the market valuation of the value added by an industry itself evolves independently of the price evolution of its inputs. The possible relationship between price developments and changes in sectoral turnover, value added and operating surpluses is also examined. The descriptive analyses are suitable for dispelling some myths about food inflation. The discussion of price developments confirms that, with the exception of cereals, agricultural producer prices have developed consistently weaklier than consumer prices and, in particular, input prices within the value chains. However, this does not necessarily mean a deterioration in the sectoral situation if productivity increases and structural change is successful. In fact, the analysis of implicit inflation rates confirms that the market valuation of the services provided by agriculture itself, i.e., its gross value added, is also developing relatively positively compared to other industries. The same applies to the sector's gross operating surpluses. In addition, the national accounts data used suggest that the construction industry has greater opportunities for favourable pricing than industries in the much-discussed food value chain, including food retailing. Over the past 30 years, the construction industry, the food industry and agriculture have shown a weak development of price-adjusted (real) GVA while at the same time experiencing high implicit inflation rates, i.e. relatively strong nominal growth. The analyses also show that positive price trends in agriculture in particular are often less the result of direct market power than of constrained supply in the face of rising demand. With regard to the food trade, it has become clear that taking the wholesale level into account is important for understanding price trends. Wholesale prices for food rose more sharply overall than retail prices during the observation period and the wholesale sector's return on sales was higher than that of the food retail sector, whose return on sales was lower than that of the retail sector as a whole. Since the turn of the millennium, the retail sector as a whole has seen below-average growth in the market valuation of its own value added. Furthermore, this implicit inflation in the retail sector is not significantly positively correlated with the development of consumer prices. All this does not mean that food retailers or other stages of the food value chain do not exercise market power. Given the strong structural change at all stages of the value chain, the aggregate figures may be of limited informative value for the competitiveness of the larger and growing remaining firms. More generally, the study shows that, given the complexity of market interrelationships, it is not possible to draw simple conclusions from price and inflation developments alone about changes in the competitive positions of industries or the allocation of income between them.