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Italy Braces for Pasta Inflation Amid Soaring Durum Wheat Prices

68 points by montalbano 5y ago

giuliomagnifico 5y ago
Italian here. I don’t see this price increase at the moment. Anyway going from 2-3€/kg to 2,3-3,6€/kg wouldn’t make big difference. Pasta is already very cheap. Instead I see the inflation rising in the fruit and vegetables prices! There’s a 25-30% increases since the beginning of the 2021.
- montalbano 5y ago
  > The shortage is already having an impact on production costs and will lead to retail price increases before Christmas Article suggests pasta price increase may kick in over the next few months.
  - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
    Yes I read, I wanted to say that anyway pasta is quite cheap, so you can’t feel the difference like on the petrol/diesel price in example. We already have a lot of prices increase from coffee (from 0,9€ to 1,2€) to a glass of wine (from 1€ to 1,20/30€), and a lot of other Italian typical foods that are hurting us. Anyway the price of pasta can be already different in Italy, south is cheaper. I hope this would not coming in winter or starting in 2022, but we’ll see what will happen. (Fortunately we don’t eat pasta at Christmas dinner =] )
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      I don't have historic data, but I feel like there is more of a range than there used to be, where I am in the northeastern US. At a popular grocery chain, the store brand of pasta is 1,9€/kg, which is the price I'm mentally anchored to ($1/lb). But Barilla is the equivalent of 3,3€/kg, and that's what I generally buy. Then there are the specialty or organic brands touted as "premium" or made with "bronze dies" that are like 6€/kg. I am surprised if it is possible to generalize like you do for coffee and wine. I am used to there being a huge range of prices for any staple. A thing I am noticing more and more is that the larger containers often have higher unit pricing.
      - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
        I don’t understand what is your “surprise”, anyway yes here in Italy the pasta is cheaper, but if the price will rise, it should be about 0,20-0,40€/kg. There’re a lot of articles about this also in Italy, in example: "I know that Lidl has already increased the price of pasta by 10 cents - he adds - and I expect that well before Christmas everyone will expect increases between 15 and 20 cents per package". https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_ultimissime-6187388.html https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_... So, it will be noticeable but not impossible to handle, there’re a lot of prices increase in 2021, as I said, pasta is the one we (Italian) care less fortunately because it’s a small increase.
        perl4ever 5y ago
        >I don’t understand what is your “surprise” As I said, pasta ranges in price very widely here. So do coffee and wine. So I do not know what it means when somebody says coffee costs <X> and wine costs <Y>. How can it be so standardized?
        mmarq 5y ago
        You can calculate a weighted average of some sort. Or you may sort them in categories and compute the average for each category. For instance you can say that wine in the UK costs on average 9£ per litre and that cheap wine cost 5-7£ per litre (I’m making up numbers).
        perl4ever 5y ago
        Of course you can. That is what government statistics and academic studies are for. But the source here, I believe was from an executive of a pasta factory. It would be surprising to me if essentially all the pasta in Italy was made by one producer and sold at one price, such that you could talk about trends in fractions of a Euro based on one interview like this. I'm used to staples being sold at different price points within a grocery store and across different stores or different communities. Not a range of 40-80% like your sample numbers, but 300% or more.
- wcoenen 5y ago
  > Anyway going from 2-3€/kg to 2,3-3,6€/kg wouldn’t make big difference. The article shows that durum wheat prices have increased by more than 50%. So assuming that the dominant factor in the price of pasta is the price of wheat, the price rise would be more like going from 2-3€/kg to 3-4.5€/kg
  - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
    I don't think, because italy produces 70% of its durum wheat, so the price will be influenced but not totally dependent from it.
    - wcoenen 5y ago
      The price chart in the article showing the +50% rise is labeled "IT durum wheat DELFIRST". I believe the "IT" stands for "Italy", so this is already showing the effect on the Italian market.
      - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
        Yes but for the imported durum wheat, that it doesn’t mean it used for Italian pasta, at least not all the pastas because on Italian brands are usi no their own fields for the durum wheat, it isn’t an importer one. Probably the imported durum wheat is used for other things, like farina or fodder. I’m not saying that it will not happen a price increase, a lot of people are saying it also in Italy, but a lot less than the +50%, surely. Here’s an interview with the CEO of an Italian pasta maker (La Molisiana): "I know that Lidl has already increased the price of pasta by 10 cents - he adds - and I expect that well before Christmas everyone will expect increases between 15 and 20 cents per package". Translate it: https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_ultimissime-6187388.html https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_...
      - pasta2 5y ago
        Down here you can find price used by producers and sellers of variuos cereals in Italy. durum wheat is "frumento duro". The price now is 458,00 €/T which quite high. https://www.ismeamercati.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/1184 https://www.ismeamercati.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT...
- csomar 5y ago
  Wow. Just a few Kms across the Mediterranean, Pasta sells for around 0.29€/kg. Also, this is the "favorite?" food for people who have tight incomes, so they might be very sensitive to these changes. > Instead I see the inflation rising in the fruit and vegetables prices! There’s a 25-30% increases since the beginning of the 2021. It's only a matter of time it spreads to the rest of the basket. I guess the pro-MMT folks are hiding now.
  - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
    A Barilla box usually is about 0,8-1€ but half a kilo in Italy. There’re cheaper brands but also more expensive. I don’t think you will find a box of 0.5kg of pasta at 0.15€ in Europe. Maybe you’re getting confused between a box (half a kilo) and a kilo of pasta.
    - csomar 5y ago
      No I meant Tunisia, which is quite close to Italy.
      - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
        Oh okay but is not Europe =]
        csomar 5y ago
        I'm not sure, but I don't think I mentioned it's in Europe. Just across the Italy.
    - ukblewis 5y ago
      Maybe not 0.15 and maybe not half a kilo but a whole kilo for 40p (approx 0.47 euro) is certainly cheap: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/Product/hubbards-foodstore-spaghetti-1kg https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/Product/hubbards-foodsto... Not saying that it’s equivalent quality to Barilla but it’s definitely much cheaper
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > Anyway going from 2-3€/kg to 2,3-3,6€/kg wouldn’t make big difference. It could be much more by the end of the year, according to the article. Although to be honest i've never bought pasta that expensive (usually i buy < 1.5€/kg here in France).
derbOac 5y ago
So... as a pasta-loving American, wouldn't this affect us as well? I understand markets can be different but they're talking about Canadian wheat exports, not Italian domestic production.
- ThrowawayR2 5y ago
  There are news sites dedicated to agricultural news that have articles about US wheat production, which includes durum. The forecasts don't look positive. https://agfax.com/2021/07/23/wheat-drought-threatens-production-supply-concerns-dtn/ https://agfax.com/2021/07/23/wheat-drought-threatens-product... https://ndwheat.com/growers/progress/dakotagoldnewsletter/WMRUSDurumProductionShocksMarket/ https://ndwheat.com/growers/progress/dakotagoldnewsletter/WM...
- yunohn 5y ago
  I’m honestly surprised that pasta-creating Italy is somehow dependent on Canada for their wheat, to the point where it’s causing inflation.
beebeepka 5y ago
And just in time for the annual spaghetti harvest https://youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU https://youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU Seriously though, every single thing has been going up in price lately. The inflation is real. Over 50% here, another 50% there and there went our savings
taneq 5y ago
> According to Ferro, big pasta producers are already rushing to stock grain, which can be stored for up to two years. So how much of this price rise is genuine demand and how much is a panicky market bulk buying in response to a perceived future shortage? Sounds like we might have a bit of a toilet paper situation here.
- christophilus 5y ago
  Inflation causes inflation due to behavioral changes induced by the fear of inflation. It’s a snowball effect, so the answer to your question is, only time will tell.
retrac98 5y ago
Seems the real story here is climate change significantly increasing the price of a staple food. “Pasta is cheap anyway” is such a privileged point of view.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Well it's not a big deal for people in Europe if grain prices go up or down by 50% so the headline is a bit ridiculous. Nobody in Italy is going to starve.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    I did food distribution to students last winter and... The kids are living on pasta & rice, the cheapest one near the ground in supermarkets. They've teamed up to try and buy larger quantities/lower price. Same w/ dairy and basic staples. The kids I met there probably won't handle that increase well. I mean the nonprofit giving them food flyers were all 'give veggies, fruits, bottled/canned sauce, they're already only eating pasta and we've got them on that.' I was a penniless student minmaxing food price/consumption, but this is a slaughter.
    - touisteur 5y ago
      And, we've taken (big corp) as many interns we could take (4 times more than usual), stretching everything, and I know some of them interns would have liked more attention, more guidance and I was upfront, this is a special time, we're taking as many as we can, they'll have a (not so great, but better than most SMEs) salary for 4 or 6 months and industry experience in a well-known company, and we'll give them real subjects and treat them with respect. Just less availability and guidance than what we were used to. Sorry not sorry. Of course we got work in exchange, but if you don't try to help now, when will you. Turns out, the results of this are amazing. Success or failure of the internship subjects, we've learned SO much from all the experiences, many of our young colleagues now have a tiny management experience, some really want to take more next years, some are more 'not for me but I'll help if you ask' and some are 'uh people management is not for me'. And there's a good mood from all this. Most of the interns were amazing, ultra motivated, and (it's cynical, I know) so grateful. It's going to sound very trumpian but some of them, (not 'big guys, strong guys') when announced we were taking them in, literally melt down crying. One of them came in the last days of his stay, telling me he was so grateful we 'saved' him, because he couldn't find anything (the boy is top-5 in his school, WTF). Most of them came to me or their supervisor in the last days saying how hard it was out there and how relieved they were. It was a hard year (try seriously reading, reviewing, correcting, RE-READING 35 internship reports/memos in 3 weeks), but no regrets.
ccosm 5y ago
Is there a reason why every price increase is referred to as "inflation" these days? I thought inflation had more to do with debasement of a currency than price fluctuations due to supply and demand, with the key functional distinction being that the former can be hard to reverse while the latter can self-correct given time (e.g. the lumber price increase we saw this summer).
- usui 5y ago
  When everything is inflation, nothing is. When everything conflates to inflation, it stops people from realizing the real inflation happening right under them.
- yunohn 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Definition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Definition Basically, inflation can be split into two types: > An increase in the money supply may be called monetary inflation, to distinguish it from rising prices, which for clarity may be called "price inflation".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.md/qKrdY https://archive.md/qKrdY
gdubs 5y ago
Sort of misleading to use the word “inflation” when this seems to be primarily driven by climate related factors: https://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2021/09/10/Out-of-control-durum-wheat-market-expected-to-cause-pasta-shortage https://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2021/09/10/Out-of-co...
- yunohn 5y ago
  According to you, what kind of factors leading to an increase in wheat prices, would make it inflation? In our modern economy, prices are often determined by supply, which can be influenced by factors like climate. Absolutely expected that it would cause inflation.
  - gdubs 5y ago
    Technically true. But inflation as a function of monetary / fiscal policy is top of mind for many right now — and what most people picture when they hear the word — and so it’s helpful to draw a distinction.

68 points by montalbano 5y ago

Italian here. I don’t see this price increase at the moment. Anyway going from 2-3€/kg to 2,3-3,6€/kg wouldn’t make big difference. Pasta is already very cheap. Instead I see the inflation rising in the fruit and vegetables prices! There’s a 25-30% increases since the beginning of the 2021.

montalbano 5y ago
> The shortage is already having an impact on production costs and will lead to retail price increases before Christmas Article suggests pasta price increase may kick in over the next few months.
- giuliomagnifico 5y ago
  Yes I read, I wanted to say that anyway pasta is quite cheap, so you can’t feel the difference like on the petrol/diesel price in example. We already have a lot of prices increase from coffee (from 0,9€ to 1,2€) to a glass of wine (from 1€ to 1,20/30€), and a lot of other Italian typical foods that are hurting us. Anyway the price of pasta can be already different in Italy, south is cheaper. I hope this would not coming in winter or starting in 2022, but we’ll see what will happen. (Fortunately we don’t eat pasta at Christmas dinner =] )
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I don't have historic data, but I feel like there is more of a range than there used to be, where I am in the northeastern US. At a popular grocery chain, the store brand of pasta is 1,9€/kg, which is the price I'm mentally anchored to ($1/lb). But Barilla is the equivalent of 3,3€/kg, and that's what I generally buy. Then there are the specialty or organic brands touted as "premium" or made with "bronze dies" that are like 6€/kg. I am surprised if it is possible to generalize like you do for coffee and wine. I am used to there being a huge range of prices for any staple. A thing I am noticing more and more is that the larger containers often have higher unit pricing.
    - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
      I don’t understand what is your “surprise”, anyway yes here in Italy the pasta is cheaper, but if the price will rise, it should be about 0,20-0,40€/kg. There’re a lot of articles about this also in Italy, in example: "I know that Lidl has already increased the price of pasta by 10 cents - he adds - and I expect that well before Christmas everyone will expect increases between 15 and 20 cents per package". https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_ultimissime-6187388.html https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_... So, it will be noticeable but not impossible to handle, there’re a lot of prices increase in 2021, as I said, pasta is the one we (Italian) care less fortunately because it’s a small increase.
      - perl4ever 5y ago
        >I don’t understand what is your “surprise” As I said, pasta ranges in price very widely here. So do coffee and wine. So I do not know what it means when somebody says coffee costs <X> and wine costs <Y>. How can it be so standardized?
        mmarq 5y ago
        You can calculate a weighted average of some sort. Or you may sort them in categories and compute the average for each category. For instance you can say that wine in the UK costs on average 9£ per litre and that cheap wine cost 5-7£ per litre (I’m making up numbers).
        perl4ever 5y ago
        Of course you can. That is what government statistics and academic studies are for. But the source here, I believe was from an executive of a pasta factory. It would be surprising to me if essentially all the pasta in Italy was made by one producer and sold at one price, such that you could talk about trends in fractions of a Euro based on one interview like this. I'm used to staples being sold at different price points within a grocery store and across different stores or different communities. Not a range of 40-80% like your sample numbers, but 300% or more.
wcoenen 5y ago
> Anyway going from 2-3€/kg to 2,3-3,6€/kg wouldn’t make big difference. The article shows that durum wheat prices have increased by more than 50%. So assuming that the dominant factor in the price of pasta is the price of wheat, the price rise would be more like going from 2-3€/kg to 3-4.5€/kg
- giuliomagnifico 5y ago
  I don't think, because italy produces 70% of its durum wheat, so the price will be influenced but not totally dependent from it.
  - wcoenen 5y ago
    The price chart in the article showing the +50% rise is labeled "IT durum wheat DELFIRST". I believe the "IT" stands for "Italy", so this is already showing the effect on the Italian market.
    - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
      Yes but for the imported durum wheat, that it doesn’t mean it used for Italian pasta, at least not all the pastas because on Italian brands are usi no their own fields for the durum wheat, it isn’t an importer one. Probably the imported durum wheat is used for other things, like farina or fodder. I’m not saying that it will not happen a price increase, a lot of people are saying it also in Italy, but a lot less than the +50%, surely. Here’s an interview with the CEO of an Italian pasta maker (La Molisiana): "I know that Lidl has already increased the price of pasta by 10 cents - he adds - and I expect that well before Christmas everyone will expect increases between 15 and 20 cents per package". Translate it: https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_ultimissime-6187388.html https://www.leggo.it/alimentazione/news/pasta_allarme_grano_...
    - pasta2 5y ago
      Down here you can find price used by producers and sellers of variuos cereals in Italy. durum wheat is "frumento duro". The price now is 458,00 €/T which quite high. https://www.ismeamercati.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/1184 https://www.ismeamercati.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT...
csomar 5y ago
Wow. Just a few Kms across the Mediterranean, Pasta sells for around 0.29€/kg. Also, this is the "favorite?" food for people who have tight incomes, so they might be very sensitive to these changes. > Instead I see the inflation rising in the fruit and vegetables prices! There’s a 25-30% increases since the beginning of the 2021. It's only a matter of time it spreads to the rest of the basket. I guess the pro-MMT folks are hiding now.
- giuliomagnifico 5y ago
  A Barilla box usually is about 0,8-1€ but half a kilo in Italy. There’re cheaper brands but also more expensive. I don’t think you will find a box of 0.5kg of pasta at 0.15€ in Europe. Maybe you’re getting confused between a box (half a kilo) and a kilo of pasta.
  - csomar 5y ago
    No I meant Tunisia, which is quite close to Italy.
    - giuliomagnifico 5y ago
      Oh okay but is not Europe =]
      - csomar 5y ago
        I'm not sure, but I don't think I mentioned it's in Europe. Just across the Italy.
  - ukblewis 5y ago
    Maybe not 0.15 and maybe not half a kilo but a whole kilo for 40p (approx 0.47 euro) is certainly cheap: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/Product/hubbards-foodstore-spaghetti-1kg https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/Product/hubbards-foodsto... Not saying that it’s equivalent quality to Barilla but it’s definitely much cheaper
southerntofu 5y ago
> Anyway going from 2-3€/kg to 2,3-3,6€/kg wouldn’t make big difference. It could be much more by the end of the year, according to the article. Although to be honest i've never bought pasta that expensive (usually i buy < 1.5€/kg here in France).

derbOac 5y ago

So... as a pasta-loving American, wouldn't this affect us as well? I understand markets can be different but they're talking about Canadian wheat exports, not Italian domestic production.

ThrowawayR2 5y ago
There are news sites dedicated to agricultural news that have articles about US wheat production, which includes durum. The forecasts don't look positive. https://agfax.com/2021/07/23/wheat-drought-threatens-production-supply-concerns-dtn/ https://agfax.com/2021/07/23/wheat-drought-threatens-product... https://ndwheat.com/growers/progress/dakotagoldnewsletter/WMRUSDurumProductionShocksMarket/ https://ndwheat.com/growers/progress/dakotagoldnewsletter/WM...
yunohn 5y ago
I’m honestly surprised that pasta-creating Italy is somehow dependent on Canada for their wheat, to the point where it’s causing inflation.

beebeepka 5y ago

And just in time for the annual spaghetti harvest https://youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU https://youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU Seriously though, every single thing has been going up in price lately. The inflation is real. Over 50% here, another 50% there and there went our savings

taneq 5y ago

> According to Ferro, big pasta producers are already rushing to stock grain, which can be stored for up to two years. So how much of this price rise is genuine demand and how much is a panicky market bulk buying in response to a perceived future shortage? Sounds like we might have a bit of a toilet paper situation here.

christophilus 5y ago
Inflation causes inflation due to behavioral changes induced by the fear of inflation. It’s a snowball effect, so the answer to your question is, only time will tell.

retrac98 5y ago

Seems the real story here is climate change significantly increasing the price of a staple food. “Pasta is cheap anyway” is such a privileged point of view.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Well it's not a big deal for people in Europe if grain prices go up or down by 50% so the headline is a bit ridiculous. Nobody in Italy is going to starve.
- touisteur 5y ago
  I did food distribution to students last winter and... The kids are living on pasta & rice, the cheapest one near the ground in supermarkets. They've teamed up to try and buy larger quantities/lower price. Same w/ dairy and basic staples. The kids I met there probably won't handle that increase well. I mean the nonprofit giving them food flyers were all 'give veggies, fruits, bottled/canned sauce, they're already only eating pasta and we've got them on that.' I was a penniless student minmaxing food price/consumption, but this is a slaughter.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    And, we've taken (big corp) as many interns we could take (4 times more than usual), stretching everything, and I know some of them interns would have liked more attention, more guidance and I was upfront, this is a special time, we're taking as many as we can, they'll have a (not so great, but better than most SMEs) salary for 4 or 6 months and industry experience in a well-known company, and we'll give them real subjects and treat them with respect. Just less availability and guidance than what we were used to. Sorry not sorry. Of course we got work in exchange, but if you don't try to help now, when will you. Turns out, the results of this are amazing. Success or failure of the internship subjects, we've learned SO much from all the experiences, many of our young colleagues now have a tiny management experience, some really want to take more next years, some are more 'not for me but I'll help if you ask' and some are 'uh people management is not for me'. And there's a good mood from all this. Most of the interns were amazing, ultra motivated, and (it's cynical, I know) so grateful. It's going to sound very trumpian but some of them, (not 'big guys, strong guys') when announced we were taking them in, literally melt down crying. One of them came in the last days of his stay, telling me he was so grateful we 'saved' him, because he couldn't find anything (the boy is top-5 in his school, WTF). Most of them came to me or their supervisor in the last days saying how hard it was out there and how relieved they were. It was a hard year (try seriously reading, reviewing, correcting, RE-READING 35 internship reports/memos in 3 weeks), but no regrets.

ccosm 5y ago

Is there a reason why every price increase is referred to as "inflation" these days? I thought inflation had more to do with debasement of a currency than price fluctuations due to supply and demand, with the key functional distinction being that the former can be hard to reverse while the latter can self-correct given time (e.g. the lumber price increase we saw this summer).

usui 5y ago
When everything is inflation, nothing is. When everything conflates to inflation, it stops people from realizing the real inflation happening right under them.
yunohn 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Definition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Definition Basically, inflation can be split into two types: > An increase in the money supply may be called monetary inflation, to distinguish it from rising prices, which for clarity may be called "price inflation".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.md/qKrdY https://archive.md/qKrdY

gdubs 5y ago

Sort of misleading to use the word “inflation” when this seems to be primarily driven by climate related factors: https://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2021/09/10/Out-of-control-durum-wheat-market-expected-to-cause-pasta-shortage https://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2021/09/10/Out-of-co...

yunohn 5y ago
According to you, what kind of factors leading to an increase in wheat prices, would make it inflation? In our modern economy, prices are often determined by supply, which can be influenced by factors like climate. Absolutely expected that it would cause inflation.
- gdubs 5y ago
  Technically true. But inflation as a function of monetary / fiscal policy is top of mind for many right now — and what most people picture when they hear the word — and so it’s helpful to draw a distinction.