The GVH launched an accelerated sector investigation into the cooking oil market

The announcement highlighted that the national competition authority, in close cooperation with the Hungarian National Bank (MNB), continues to work with all available tools to protect Hungarian consumers from excessive price increases and unlawful practices resulting from a lack of competition.

It was recalled that Mihály Varga, President of the Hungarian National Bank, and Csaba Balázs Rigó, President of the Hungarian Competition Authority, announced last December that the two institutions would put their cooperation on new foundations in order to reduce inflation and maintain fair market competition.

The statement explained that the domestic consumer price level overall is 69 percent of the EU average. In comparison, food prices are only 4.9 percent lower than the EU price level, while the domestic product group is about 10 percent more expensive compared to prices in regional countries.

They added that there is a significant difference between the general price level and food prices, which is difficult to justify with domestic development or other macroeconomic factors.

Within the food product group, the highest price level is experienced in the oils and fats food group, which also includes cooking oil. For this product group, the domestic price level exceeds the EU average by nearly 10 percent and the regional average by 16 percent, according to Eurostat data.

According to data from the Central Statistical Office (KSH), per capita consumption of cooking oil in Hungary is around 10-12 liters per year, which means that more than 100 million liters of cooking oil – mainly sunflower oil – are used in domestic households.

– they wrote in the announcement.

According to the information, experts from the GVH and the MNB revealed that since December 2024, the price of cooking oil in Hungary, expressed in euros – even with the price-reducing effect of margin restrictions – has increased more than the regional average.

The domestic consumer price of cooking oil increased by 15.8 percent in euros between December 2024 and the autumn months of 2025. In comparison, the average price increase in the other three Visegrád countries, calculated in euros, was 9.7 percent during the same period.

Despite the introduction of the margin restriction, a marked price increase can be observed on the domestic market, which further increases the already substantial difference between the domestic price level and regional prices.

Based on all of this, the GVH concluded that it is justified to examine the extent to which market factors affecting different levels of the value chain may have contributed to the deviation from the average prices of the Visegrád countries and from the quoted prices on European stock exchanges.

Announced:

For the investigation, the national competition authority also uses historical data from the online Price Monitor it operates.

There are already 140 products on the www.arfigyelo.gvh.hu website.