Butter price rises spread across Poland

Butter prices in Poland went up by almost 50 percent in the past year. For a country that uses six kilograms of butter per capita every year, this price hike makes a significant impact on household budgets. 

The increase also affects many businesses across the country, like the small bakery CGTN visited in the city of Krakow. Butter is a key ingredient in its cakes, and owner Anna Bunetska refuses to switch to a cheaper substitute - margarine. 

Bunetska says she's trying to find a way to circumvent the rising prices, and is not ready to sacrifice her products' quality.

"We are trying to find butter with a discount price, so we don't need to increase the price, and we don't suffer because of less profit," Bunetska told us. "So, we are trying to store it as much as we can, but since we are also a small production, we don't have enough space in the refrigerators."

In Krakow supermarkets, the prices rose to almost $2.50 per standard package of 200 grams of butter. Some inferior versions sell at a discount price of $1.90 a pack.

Butter is also offered in the markets of Krakow where farmers from around the city come to sell their products. The farmers complain that recently business has been slower than usual. 

In those markets you can find the best homemade butter available. No additives, nothing artificial in that butter, just top-notch quality….but at top-notch prices.

We spoke with Anka, a farmer from the nearby village of Konina who sells the butter in one of the central markets of Krakow.

"Before, there was almost a revolution when butter prices were supposed to go up a lot. Well, that was true then. People were going crazy because of that," Anka told us. 

At one moment before the New Year, the butter price crisis in Poland was so severe that the government had to intervene by introducing butter from its strategic reserves.

Arkadiusz Pisarek, President of the Board of the National Association of Dairy Cooperatives told us that the government tried to do damage control.

"The government launched the sale of one thousand tonnes last year to calm down the rising prices a little but, as we know, it was not a large amount, and it did not change the situation significantly," Pisarek told CGTN.

Local butter producers insist they are not to blame for the price hike. In the village of Bogoniowice, some 100 km east from Krakow, a small dairy with 25 employees makes butter. Company CEO Marek Wolkowicz gave us his thoughts about why the butter prices increased.

"I think that this is not the result of some extraordinary demand on the market," insisted Wolkowicz. "In many other countries, the prices of animal fats, in this case butter, have significantly risen, and this is the result of speculative activities on a global scale."

January is a slow month for butter consumption, which is why its prices at this moment are not rising so fast. For Poles this truly is a bread-and-butter issue.