Greece’s general goods and food market and its supply chain are operating smoothly, ministers confirmed at an extraordinary ministerial meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday, said government sources.
The meeting was held to discuss potential shortages in food and in raw materials in the primary sector that may arise due to Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.
Moreover, there is no issue of shortages, noted Rural Development Ministry officials, after looking at the country’s food adequacy, international data on trade in agricultural products, supplies and energy, and how these affect production costs.
The absolute sufficiency of goods is also being confirmed via the daily contact of all relevant ministers with market sectors, it was added. Sunflower oil is also currently facing no shortage, it was noted.
Ukraine is not one of Greece’s main suppliers of cereal grains, therefore the supply of these to the Greek market continues unhindered.
It was also decided to intensify controls against unfair trade practices and possible profiteering. – via amna
PS Ministera apparently did not have a reply to a crucial question: Can citizens afford to purchase these goods and food as their prices have gone up and keep going up day by day?
Producers selling at the open farmers’ market (laiki) complain that they have lost almost half of their customers, even though laiki is much cheaper than the supermarket.
The blame “a difficult winter and a crazy increase in production costs,” that makes locally produced “agricultural products hard to find,” as they say characteristically.
The minister clearly does not understand global supply chains. Ukraine may not be a direct supplier of cereals to Greece but they are a major supplier of cereals into the global market. If Ukraine’s supply to the market is disrupted by the war then the whole supply chain will be disrupted. Does Greece produce, inside Greece, 100 % of the cereal it consumes? If not Greece will be impacted.
The question on cost is also relevant. I was in a taverna on Saturday and they confirmed that they had taken all deep fried food off the menu because of the cost of sunflower oil. I can never remember this happening before in my lifetime and that is a considerable length of time.
On the plus side those tavernas that cheat and use sunflower oil rather than olive oil to make the toasted bread might go back to olive oil?
Like high oil prices, supply chain disruptions precede the war in Ukraine by about a year. They have to do with inflation (central banks printing money like drunken sailors) and misallocations due to Covid lock downs.
It isn’t either/or, Kassandra. All these effects are cumulative. Inflation of the money supply certainly causes price increases as does disruption to the supply chain caused by COVID measures and by the war in Ukraine. It is all additive.