The average price of essential foods in Portugal went up almost 30% since 2022, with Portugal’s food and safety body estimating that a food basket went from €74.90 at the start of 2022 to €96.44 today, the government announced Thursday.
“In January 2022, it was at €74.90, and now [February] it is at €96.44,” indicated the Inspector General of the Food and Economic Safety Authority (ASAE), Pedro Portugal Gaspar, who was speaking at a press conference, at the Economy and Maritime Affairs Ministry in Lisbon – figures that point to a 28.76% increase.
The ASAE basket comprises essential goods, namely fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, pasta, rice, olive oil, oil, eggs, sugar, milk, bread and flour.
The government will be “inflexible” with all the irregular situations verified in this sector, Economy Minister António Costa Silva said on Thursday.
According to data advanced at the same press conference, ASAE has carried out, since the second half of 2022, more than 960 inspection operations and will start a new country-wide operation on Friday.
On 1 March, 38 brigades involving 80 inspectors from the Food and Economic Security Authority (ASAE) were on the ground inspecting the prices of foodstuffs in hypermarkets and supermarkets, in light of the 21.1% increase in the basic basket last year, more than double inflation.
(Pedro Emídio | Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com
