1. What does this application show?
This interactive application visualises the data of the Food Price Monitoring Tool. It shows the price development along the various stages of the food-supply chain, i.e. from producers to consumers.
With the application you can easily compare changes in prices of food products in the EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. It also shows how prices are transmitted from one stage of the food supply chain to the other.
To give an example: due to bad weather conditions in one year there is a poor harvest and consequently the price of vegetables sold by farmers increases by 10%. What can be the expected increase of the price of vegetables which are sold in the supermarket?
The application shows price indices and annual rates at four stages of the food supply chain: agriculture, food processing industry, retail sector and imports.
The data cover 15 products and product groups:
Food (1)
Bread and Cereals (2)
Meat (3)
Beef and veal (4)
Pork (5)
Poultry (6)
Fish and seafood (7)
Milk, cheese and eggs (8)
Fresh whole milk (9)
Cheese and curd (10)
Eggs (11)
Oils and fats (12)
Fruit (13)
Vegetables (14)
Potatoes (15)
2. How do I navigate within the tool?
a) When you click on "Price trends along the food supply chain" on top of the screen, you can see the evolution of prices for each stage(*) of the supply chain for a specific product (or group of products) and country in a graph.
b) When clicking on the pictures on the start screen, you can display the evolution of prices from 2005 onwards for the respective stage of the supply chain(*) in a map.
c) When you click on the green arrows between the images, you can see the experimental indicators on price transmission. They help analysing the price transmission from one stage of the food supply chain to another: From the "agricultural sector" to "food industry", from "food industry" to the "retail sector" and from the "agricultural sector" to the "retail sector". The last price transmission has been included as there are some food products which are barely processed, such as fresh fruit or vegetables.
Please note that the grey arrows originating from "Imports" are not clickable. For more details, see the Frequently Asked Questions.
3. Data Sources
a) Price trends: indices and annual rates
All price indices and annual rates come from Eurostat.
b) Price transmission: experimental indicators
Using statistical modelling, Eurostat has developed experimental indicators in order to analyse the price transmission from one stage of the supply chain to another. These experimental indicators analyse the price transmission for individual products (or product groups) and for individual countries, namely the EU Member States and Turkey.
4. National Observatories
If available, you may also check the national food price observatory of a country (see top right link on the start screen).
5. Questions and feedback
If you have questions about the application or the data or would like to give us your feedback, please contact us at ESTAT-prc-stats-methods@ec.europa.eu.
(*) Please note that for some countries, products and/or periods data may not be available.
1. I tried to see data for my country for a specific product, but it is not available in the charts and/or is coloured grey on the map. Can you tell me why?
Data are not available for all periods, countries or products. The Food Price Monitoring Tool gathers existing data from different sources which are produced independently of each other. This explains why the data coverage and availability differs from country to country. As an example it can be mentioned that most countries do not have detailed data on producer prices. Also, many countries do not have data on prices for certain agricultural products. In addition, it has to be noted that no import and agricultural commodity data exist for non-EU countries (i.e. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey).
2. How do I know what different products, such as "Meat" or "Bread and cereals", cover?
This depends on the stage of the food supply chain. The classifications used at each of these stages differ, although the products (and product groups) are relatively similar. If you want to check what is covered by a specific product (or product group), please have a look at points 3.2 and 3.4 of the available metadata (in English).
3. What can I expect to see when clicking on "Price trends along the food supply chain" on top of the application?
This provides you a visualisation and overview of the price transmissions. In most cases, the agricultural commodity prices are the "leading" indicator: their price increases and decreases happen first before the other stages of the food chain are affected. Also, the magnitude of the change of agricultural commodity prices is usually higher than for the prices in the other stages.
In general, a price change of the agricultural commodity prices is followed by a price change of producer prices and finally by consumer prices. However, this pattern might vary, depending on the product and the country. No clear pattern regarding the lag of import prices can be identified as it depends largely on the country and the product.
If you want to analyse short-term patterns, we advise you to select "Annual Rate (%)" from the drop-down box on the top right hand side. If you are more interested in long-term patterns, we advise you to select "Index (2015=100)".
4. Why can I click on the green arrows but not on the grey ones?
The grey arrows only indicate that there is an effect of imports on the other stages of the supply chain. This effect is included in the "Other cost component effects" of each of the three price transmissions (agricultural sector to food industry, food industry to retail and agricultural sector to retail). Clicking on the green arrows will provide you more detailed information on the price transmission.
5. In some cases "Data not available" is displayed on the price transmission pages even if the data were available before in the charts or maps. Can you tell me why?
It is only possible to analyse the transmission of prices from one stage to the other if the time series of both of these stages are available for a minimum continuous period of 30 months.
6. What does it mean when the price transmission for a specific product and country is marked as "not statistically significant"?
When displaying the bar charts for the different stages of price transmission, there are many cases (especially under the tab "Speed of price transmission") for which the values are not statistically significant. This does not mean that there is no price transmission at all. It means that for a specific product (or product group) and country, based on the existing data, there is not sufficient evidence to be able to state that the price change of one stage of the supply chain impacts the other.
The approach is based on the statistical hypothesis testing. The null hypothesis H0 assumes that there is no price transmission, and the alternative hypothesis H1 assumes there is price transmission. The cases marked as "not statistically significant" are the ones for which not enough evidence to discard H0 is available, based the existing data (in a 95% confidence interval).
7. Why does my country not appear in the list of National Observatories?
Not all countries have a food price observatory or an institution on a similar role. The list of observatories will be continuously updated. If you think that an institution missing on the list, please contact us at
ESTAT-prc-stats-methods@ec.europa.eu.
