Jan 13
The Cost of Essential Food Around the World
The global pandemic put the humble grocery basket in the spotlight. More to the point, it was the basket’s contents — or lack of contents — that concerned the world.
Panic-buying for toilet paper became a meme in 2020. The baking craze made flour a rare commodity. But at the same time, 2.37 billion people — one in three humans — suffered from food insecurity, unable to afford a balanced and nutritious diet. That’s a rise of 320 million people due to the pandemic. In the US, grocery prices are likely to keep rising.
Meanwhile, in the UK, coronavirus and Brexit have led to a shortage of truck drivers and a shortage of food on the shelves. This is a land where the national security agency believes society is only ever “four meals away from anarchy” — and where prime minister Boris Johnson once said, “I don’t know how much a pint of milk costs — so what?”
But the price of essential groceries does matter — and so does how that cost relates to your income. NetCredit designed a shopping list of staple foods and researched how much it would cost to buy in grocery stores worldwide, plus affordability compared to local wages. And then they did the same for a vegan shopping list, too.
