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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

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.

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.