Food and non-alcoholic beverages in Slovakia are among the cheapest in the European Union, as these goods are less expensive in only six other countries of the EU. This is one of the outcomes analysts of Poštová Banka have identified when analysing the latest data from Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Union, for 2016.
“Many Slovaks would certainly say that this isn’t true and food is too expensive here,” wrote Jana Glasová, analyst with Poštová Banka, in the report, as cited by the TASR newswire. “They’re even right from a certain point of view, as we tend to compare prices in our shops with prices in neighbouring countries.”
Slovakia has the most expensive food and beverages in the Visegrad Four (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia).
“In the Czech Republic and Hungary, we find 9 percent lower figures on price tags on food than here,” said Glasová. “At the same time food and non-alcoholic beverages in Poland are as much as 30 percent cheaper than here.”
Food is also significantly cheaper in Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania.
On average, food in the EU is 13 percent more expensive than in Slovakia, while the eurozone mean is 21 percent higher.
The most expensive food in the EU is in Denmark – 68 percent more than in Slovakia. However, two non-EU countries are even more costly.
“We’d pay almost twice as much for food in Switzerland and we’d probably be taken aback by the 85 percent higher prices in Norway,” said Glasová.
