John Whelan: Food and drink inflation bolstered but year ahead looks bleak (Irish Examiner) 

The Irish Examiner published an op-ed by John Whelan on food prices. He writes that Ireland’s food and drink exporters are thinking about where things will stand in 2023. The rampant increase in exports last year as reported by Bord Bia was mainly driven by the sector pushing up prices. This is unlikely to continue in the year ahead, as buyers at home and internationally look for lower prices to meet consumer cost of living pressure.

EU inflation last year was the highest in over 25 years and created a nightmare situation for central banks which are mandated to hold it at about 25 percent.

Two things largely influenced this very high inflation level. One was the restriction in world food and feed production in the last year, and a big part of that was due to the war in Ukraine.

According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, many countries introduced food export restrictions to try and control rising inflation in their home markets. The wave of export restrictions already affects nearly one-fifth of calories traded globally, that’s nearly double the impact of the last global food crisis of 2008.