Even in Bavaria… isn’t stuff really expensive there? I’m from north Germany, it’s probably even cheaper where I live
Speaking as an Austrian, German groceries are absurdly cheap in north Germany and still cheaper in the south than in the surrounding countries. The store chains say that it’s because Germany is such a big market that they can offer anything cheaper.
It is also because of predatory business praxis. A typically thing for Aldi & co. to do is making good contracts with farmers, make them invest in an expansion, and then renegotiate the prices at a point the farmers are operate without any profit or even at loss. But since they have expanded, they can only deal with the supermarkets, who are able to buy these quantities.
Probably we just pay the hidden price through farming subsidies.
Also lower safety, health + labor standards probably. Years ago I watched a french documentary where they had gone undercover in a large German slaughterhouse to explain the price difference with France. It was almost exclusively exploited migrant workers who were doing their work with appallingly low hygienic standards, which was then contrasted with a (more expensive) modern + much cleaner french slaughterhouse. I was not surprised when there was a string of scandals with German slaughterhouses during early covid. I will never buy German meat products, which is not much of a boycot, because I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen any for sale where I live.
Yeah we have a grocery delivery business here in the Netherlands that has really low prices and I’ve heard it’s because they ship in a lot of the food directly from Germany. Kind of insane to me that it’s cheaper to cart in food from another country than it is to just get it here.
