German Supermarket Seeks to Charge Shoppers ‘True’ Environmental Cost

BERLIN – German shoppers, who enjoy some of Europe’s cheapest groceries, are being asked this week by discount supermarket Penny to pay extra for some items to cover their “true cost” as it seeks to raise awareness of the environmental price of producing food.

In Europe’s largest economy, Germans paid only 11.1% of their household budget for food in 2022, compared with the average share of 15.9% for the European Union as a whole and 20.6% and 17.9% in Spain and Italy respectively, data from the federal statistics office showed.

But their cheap food, often produced on an industrial scale, has a high environmental price. German agriculture was responsible for 55.5 million metric tonnes of greenhouse emissions last year, roughly 7.4% of the country’s emissions.

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