The buttery price frenzy is ending, however, prices in Polish stores are only melting gradually. “Today, Poles buy butter for more or less as much as the Dutch and nearly 45% more than Finns. Why?” questions Marcin Lipka, Conotoxia Senior Analyst.
Wholesale butter prices in Europe have been falling for the last four months. The scale of reductions, however, varies greatly. Recent publications of the Polish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MRiRW) show that prices on butter markets in Germany or the Netherlands have dropped from historical peaks by almost 40%. These reductions are much more modest in Poland, which means that Polish wholesale butter prices are higher than their western neighbors.
Wholesale prices are higher in Poland than in the Netherlands or Germany
The MRiRW news bulletins from January, which compare butter prices in Poland and on the main wholesale markets in Europe, may explain why before Christmas Polish consumers were still paying dearly for butter. Even though the market trend had changed several months earlier.
The average sale price of 100 kg of butter in December was 481 EUR in Poland. In Germany and the Netherlands it was 425 and 420 EUR respectively.
In the autumn, Poles paid more than the Dutch
According to Eurostat data, the average retail price per kilogram of butter in 2015 was 5.12 EUR in the Netherlands and 4.92 EUR in Poland. The rate of increase in shop prices of butter compared to the average values from 2015, e.g. in October last year, was higher in Poland, 51.9%, than in the Netherlands, 44.%. This means that the Dutch paid less for butter in store than Poles. It was respectively 7.39 and 7.47 EUR per kilogram.
Butter in Poland is more expensive than in Finland by about 45%
Dutch consumers pay more or less the same for butter as Polish consumers, this is surprising when specific data is taken into account, for example, the differences in labor costs between these countries.
What is more interesting - Eurostat data for December this year showed that retail prices of butter in Finland increased only by 3.03%, compared to the average level in 2015, and in Poland, during the same period, it was 49.1%. Since Finns and Poles paid practically the same for butter - about 5 EUR per kg in 2015. At the moment, butter costs Poles approximately 45% more than Finns.