In Paris, food costs are rising, even for the humble baguette
PARIS — At the Marché d’aligre, a bustling openair market in central Paris, Mohamed Sharif grabbed a piece of chalk and reluctantly marked up the price of clementines.
Transport costs for produce imported to France had more than doubled since fall amid a surge in gasoline prices, he said, one of several factors that have driven up wholesale costs for oranges from Spain, lychee from China and passion fruit from Vietnam — and the prices he must charge.
“Customers don’t understand why they are having to pay more for what they buy,” Sharif said, pricing a pound of clementines on a recent weekend at about $2.15, up from 90 cents a week earlier. “People are buying less because costs are going up.”
Meat prices at a nearby butcher are up 10% since the summer. Some French cheeses are expected to rise 20% in the new year. Even the traditional baguette, a staple of the French diet,
will get more expensive, bakers say.
Inflation, relatively quiet in Europe for nearly a decade, is starting to make itself felt as high energy prices, labor shortages and supply chain bottlenecks set off by the end of pandemic lockdowns course through everyday life.
A record annual increase in prices, to 4.9% in the eurozone last month, is affecting Europe’s businesses, factories and commerce. But people trying to put food on the table are also beginning to get squeezed.
The outdoor fruit and vegetable sellers of the Marché d’aligre, founded in 1779, are known as the least expensive in Paris, and strive to maintain affordable prices for basics no matter the economic climate, said Remy Costaz, whose family has operated a greengrocer stand since 1905.
But costs for a wide variety of goods have climbed with the inflationary surge. Among the market’s stall keepers and modest-income shoppers, the impact is already being felt. And many are preparing for worse.
French bread is not being spared, either.
At Farine + O, an artisanal boulangerie, and at bakeries around France, the price of a traditional baguette is projected to rise up to 10 cents in the new year, said employees Charlotte Noel and Adriana Ostojic.
After shortages of loaves helped kindle the French Revolution, the government fixed prices to ensure that bread remained affordable for everyone. Those regulations ended in 1986, but boulangeries will try to pass rising costs to products like brioche before the baguette.
That has become harder amid soaring wheat prices and higher electricity bills for the bakers’ ovens. When the cost of a baguette rises, Noel said, “there’s no question that it impacts people.”
At Les Frangines d’aligre fish shop, chaos from Britain’s exit from the European Union had also pushed prices up. A fishing trade war between France and Britain has raised the price of pollock and other fish from disputed waters 40%, said owner Christine Divenzo.