Wholesale food prices at lowest levels in nearly two years

Producer prices for food products are down 8.8% in the year to November. 

Wholesale electricity and food prices dropped significantly during November compared to the same month last year bringing down the overall rate of inflation, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.

Last month, annual inflation hit 3.9% — dropping below 5% for the first time in over two years. In the year to November, wholesale electricity prices dropped by 14.1% while producer prices for food products dropped 8.8%.

Jillian Delaney, statistician with the CSO, said that food products prices on the wholesale market were lower in November “than at any time since December 2021”.

However, price drops were not seen across all the various food categories. The cost of fish and food products increased 9.3% while fruit and vegetable prices increased by 2.6%.

Beverage prices also increased by 10.3%.

Dairy product prices, on the other hand, dropped 35% in the year to November.

The data also showed that the cost of chemicals and chemical products increased by 22.5% while clothing prices increased by 6.7%. The wholesale cost of construction products increased by 0.4%.

In addition, the CSO released new data around tourism showing that of the 1.36m people who departed Ireland during November, some 447,500 of them were foreign visitors completing their trips.

On average, these visitors stayed for 6.9 nights with 39.6% saying they were here for a holiday. 

The average cost of their trip was €986 with €240 being spent on fares, €27 in pre-payments, €312 on accommodation, and €406 was spent on day-to-day expenditure.

The total estimated expenditure of foreign visitors on their trips to Ireland was €441.1 million.