Kaufland and Aldi start with significant discounts on the liter of milk, but also cheese, yoghurt and other products.
(Photo: IMAGO/Martin Wagner)
Dusseldorf The prices for dairy products are slipping again in Germany. The discounter Aldi announced on Tuesday that it would permanently reduce the prices for over 50 dairy products such as milk, cream or yoghurt by up to 15 percent from Wednesday. The price for a liter of UHT milk or fresh whole milk from Milsani’s own brand is to drop from 1.15 euros to 99 cents.
In the evening, the discounter Kaufland, like Lidl part of the Schwarz Group, also attracted permanent price reductions on dairy products. UHT milk from the K-Classic brand, for example, has also fallen from 1.15 euros to 99 cents. A total of around 350 products will be offered lower prices. Kaufland justified this with lower raw material costs.
The move comes as no surprise. The trade journal “Lebensmittel Zeitung” had already reported last week that the prices for dairy products had come under renewed pressure in the trade negotiations with the dairies. “There are signs of renewed price reductions for drinking milk and other standard White Line items,” the paper wrote.
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Dairy products are considered price points, which customers use as a guide when perceiving a retailer’s price. Aldi is regarded as the market participant that causes movement in the industry with its price movements. For years, the price of a pound of butter was the benchmark against which current food prices were measured.
However, it is uncertain how long consumers will benefit from the price reductions. According to the “Lebensmittel Zeitung”, the dairies expect prices to rise again from autumn. “We are heading towards an undersupply,” the newspaper quoted the chairman of the Dairy Industry Association (MIV), Peter Stahl. Such bottlenecks had already existed in the previous year.
Price negotiations with retailers are pending
According to the report, the CEO of Sachsenmilch Leppersdorf, Mathias Hauer, also expects a trend reversal in milk prices for the second half of the year. Milk prices on the producer side were at record levels for months, which had squeezed the margins of cheese dairies, for example. Most recently, milk on the commodity exchange has become noticeably cheaper again. Overall, however, the development is volatile.
However, many manufacturers find it difficult to pass on the increased costs to consumers via retailers – and have to sell at the expense of return on sales. In various areas of the food industry, further negotiations will soon be held with the large retailers, where the situation should improve again for the producers.
Food prices have been rising for a long time since the outbreak of the Ukraine war due to inflation, high energy costs and shortages of raw materials. This has also increasingly driven higher-income customers into the shops of the discounters.
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