Little awareness of how cheap food is

Dutch consumers do not realize how little they spend on food. Research agency DirectResearch deduces this from a representative sample of 1.560 respondents. This shows that the average Dutch person thinks they spend almost 25% of their household income on food. In reality this is 8%.

The actual spending figures are based on data from 2019 from Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Of the 1.560 respondents surveyed in DirectResearch's survey, 77% say they spend more than 10% of their disposable income on food. Only 18% think they spend between 6% and 10% of their income, and only 4% say they spend less than 5% on food.

Clear connection with prosperity
Research client LTO Nederland concludes from the research and the figures from Statistics Netherlands that the actual expenditure on food in the Netherlands turns out to be much lower than perception, but also compared with the past and with other countries. In the 19th century, the average family needed almost all of their income for basic necessities. Rising incomes and falling food prices changed this bleak picture. In 1960 just over 30% of the budget was needed for food. In 1980 this share was still 16%, in 2011 it was 11% and the percentage has decreased even further in the last decade, to 8% last year, Statistics Netherlands reports.

Acting LTO chairman Wim Bens uses the figures to once again draw attention to a fair food price. This is a spearhead of the LTO 2021 election manifesto. Bens: "Farmers and horticulturists are proud of making good, healthy and affordable food. Consumers, both in the Netherlands and in neighboring countries, benefit from this. At the same time, society has more and more wishes about the way in which food is produced. Farmers and horticulturists invest a lot in sustainability, but too often do not see this reflected in the price they receive for their products.This research shows that the Dutch do not always realize how cheap the food actually is here. "

Global trend
LTO Nederland also signals a worldwide trend that an increasingly smaller part of the income is spent on food. There are, however, large differences worldwide in the expenditure on food. This is according to data from FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN.

There are also significant differences within the European Union. Like Germany and the United Kingdom, the Netherlands is one of the countries that spend the smallest part of their income on food. But there are also EU countries where almost a quarter of the household income is actually spent on food, for example in Latvia and Romania. This is evident from figures from the European equivalent of Statistics Netherlands, the Eurostat institute of the European Union.

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