Meanwhile, in the UK, coronavirus and Brexit have led to a shortage of truck drivers and a shortage of food on the shelves. This is a land where the national security agency believes society is only ever \u201cfour meals away from anarchy\u201d \u2013 and where prime<\/a> minister<\/a> Boris Johnson once said, \u201cI don\u2019t know how much a pint of milk costs \u2013 so what?\u201d<\/p>\n But the price of essential groceries does<\/em> matter \u2013 and so does how that cost relates to your income. Online lender NetCredit<\/a> designed a shopping list of staple foods and researched how much it would cost to buy in grocery stores around the world, plus affordability compared to local wages. And then we did the same for a vegan shopping list, too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n First, we assembled a shopping list of essential foods. Then we checked this list against the prices listed on supermarket websites around the world. Here\u2019s what the totals include:<\/p>\n Breakfast Cereal | Eggs (regular) (12) | Boneless chicken breast (500g \/ 1lb) | 500g (16 oz.) of local cheese | Vegetable oil (1 liter bottle) | Loaf of fresh white bread (500g) | Milk (regular) (1 liter) | Potato (1kg \/ 2lb) | Tomato (1kg \/ 2lb) | Banana (1kg \/ 2lb) | Canned tuna (140g) | Water (1.5 liter bottle)<\/p>\n We then calculated the affordability of this basket in each country as a percentage of the average daily wage.<\/p>\n Click to see full size image<\/a><\/p>\n Europe dominates the map for expensive shopping baskets. The top two countries, and 11 of the top 20, are in Europe. The most expensive European groceries are in the countries with among the highest incomes. Indeed, Norway and Switzerland are in the top 10 most expensive, yet are also in the top 10 most affordable<\/em> \u2013 because wages are still very high compared to costs.<\/p>\n However, the top 10 most expensive also includes two countries with relatively low wages: Jamaica and Cambodia. This basket costs $49.70 in Cambodia, number three in the world. The average daily income is just $5.28. That means the average worker would need to toil for nearly 9\u00bd days to afford basic groceries. This disparity is partly due to differences in earnings and lifestyles between urban areas and underdeveloped country regions.<\/p>\n Click to see full size image<\/a><\/p>\n Europe is also the source of some of the world\u2019s cheapest groceries. Six of the 10 cheapest baskets are in central or eastern Europe. However, the overall cheapest is in Djibouti, and number 10 is Egypt \u2013 suggesting more African nations would dominate the cheapest groceries if the data were available.<\/p>\n Despite these low prices, none of the cheapest grocery markets are among the most affordable. The best overall deal is in Poland, with the world\u2019s fourth-cheapest groceries and 20th<\/sup>-best affordability<\/a> (26.88% of the average daily wage). This suggests that wages, rather than prices, have a more significant impact on grocery affordability.<\/p>\n The United States has the most affordable groceries in the world, with giant stores and bulk buying, allowing for an affordability rate of 12.11%. However, since the US has some of the worst economic inequality<\/a> in the world, shopping for groceries is still an anxiety-inducing activity for many Americans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Next, we did it all over again, but with a vegan-ized shopping list:<\/p>\n Vegan breakfast cereal | Canned chickpeas | Frozen veggie burgers (example: soy patties) | Vegan cheese | Coconut oil (500ml) | Loaf of fresh white bread (500g) | Soy milk (1 liter) | Potato (1kg \/ 2lb) | Tomato (1kg \/ 2lb) | Banana (1kg \/ 2lb) | Brown rice (1kg) | Water (1.5 liter bottle)<\/p>\n The US jumps from the world\u2019s 33rd<\/sup> cheapest grocery haul to number 10 if you switch to a vegan diet \u2013 in fact, the American vegan basket costs just 33\u00a2 more than the regular one.<\/p>\n Click to see full size image<\/a><\/p>\n Poland leaps into top position as the cheapest place for basic groceries if you\u2019re vegan. This is partly due to a lack of vegan products in Djibouti and Moldova, which are cheaper than Poland for non-vegan groceries. Paraguay is also cheaper than Poland until you switch to vegan: the price of a basket of food in Paraguay doubles when you ditch animal products. In Poland, it rises by just under $4, or 26%.<\/p>\n The US remains in top position for most affordable groceries if you switch to vegan. In America, it takes 12.26% of the average daily pay to afford this basket of vegan food. The States is closely followed by high-income countries such as Iceland and Switzerland, and countries with moderate incomes and reasonable food prices, including Belgium, Canada and the UK.<\/p>\n Click to see full size image<\/a><\/p>\n The United Arab Emirates has the most expensive vegan essentials, costing 61.7% more than their regular versions. Switzerland remains a pricey market, even though a basket of vegan food costs nearly $4 less than standard. Iceland, Jamaica and Australia are among other countries where the vegan shopping list costs less than the regular version.<\/p>\n The least affordable vegan basket is in Honduras, where it costs 596.59% of the daily paycheck (i.e., around six day\u2019s wages). The Honduras vegan list costs more than double the non-vegan list.<\/p>\n Only around two-thirds of the countries with data for a regular basket also had comparable vegan alternatives. But things are changing. By 2020, all of the UK\u2019s top supermarkets had their own vegan range. Asda \u2013 owned by Walmart \u2013 even trialed a \u2018vegan butchers<\/a>\u2019 counter. In the US, sales of \u201cplant-based foods that directly replace animal<\/a> products” grew 27%<\/a> during the first year of the pandemic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bill Gates was shocked to find that dip<\/a> costs under ten bucks.<\/p>\n In the hit show Succession, rags-to-riches billionaire Logan Roy tests his adult son on the price of milk. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d comes Kieran Culkin\u2019s dismissive reply: \u201cLiterally no-one knows.\u201d<\/p>\n The affordability of groceries is a political issue. Climate change<\/a> and the population boom mean the very availability<\/em> of essential foods will continue to trouble all but the super-wealthy long after the Covid-19 supply chain problem is gone. Switching to vegan products may make a difference \u2013 although much of the damage is structural.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of what you can do at an individual level is weak by comparison to what governments need to do,\u201d says George Monbiot<\/a>. \u201cBut changing diet does not. That has a major impact.\u201d<\/p>\n You can check our full data on grocery prices around the world in the table below.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We began by finding a supermarket with an online shop for each country. If it wasn\u2019t possible to find an online shop we removed the country from the list. We built a list of 10 essential items for both a non-vegan and vegan shop:<\/p>\n Non-vegan grocery shop<\/strong><\/p>\nKey Findings<\/h2>\n
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Djibouti, Moldova and Paraguay Have the World\u2019s Cheapest Groceries \u2013 but the US is Most Affordable<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nPoland Has the Cheapest Vegan Essentials, but the US Has the Most Affordable<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nThe Catastrophic Cost of Groceries<\/h2>\n
METHODOLOGY<\/h2>\n