Being on holiday to other European countries, have you ever been wondering about the relatively expensive food prices? Sure, in direct comparison to German prices, food is often cheaper than in Germany, especially in restaurants. But what does it look like if you put the prices in relation to the income in the respective country? Then things look quite different, and we see that in the rich industrial countries the share of income that is spent on food is the lowest, and people in less developed countries have to spend the largest share, often half of their money, only on food. 

In Germany, in 2017, the share without alcohol and tobacco products was about 12%. The situation is similar in Switzerland, Austria, Great Britain, Finland, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. In Spain and France it is 15%, in Italy and Turkey 19%, in the Czech Republic and Greece more than 20%, in Russia 27% and in Romania, Croatia and Bulgaria 31% In Ukraine people have to spend 55% of their income on food, just as in many non-European countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, etc.

So we see how much we have left in Germany for good housing, clothing, holidays and leisure in a worldwide comparison. Another thought on this topic: many people can afford to spend more money for qualitatively better food! The trend is clearly towards more quality. More and more people are not just looking at the cheapest offer. Animal welfare is also close to the hearts of many, and perhaps you will also ask yourself during your next visit to a restaurant how the pig might have lived provided meat for the tasty goulash? Or how the dairy cow was kept? How much spray or genetic engineering was used to produce the bread grain or the vegetables, how many plastic tarpaulins on the greenhouses in Spain? 

In our globalized world with our access to so much information we can't say we don't know anything about it. We consumers decide what we support through our restaurant visit. Should the worker in the banana plantation also be paid fairly? We can contribute our small share, each for himself.