The price of bread is rising unstoppably – and with it everything from the bakery

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 07. 23. 12:18

Bread is a staple on the table of Hungarian families, yet fewer and fewer people can afford to buy it in the usual quantity and quality. The rise in the price of baked goods is visible not only on store shelves, but also in the data of the statistical office: in the past five years, the price of bread has almost tripled – writes a recent article in Agrárszektor.

The meager numbers of the price increase

According to data from the Central Statistical Office, in 2020, only 356 forints had to be paid for a kilogram of bread, but by 2023 the annual average price had already become 881 forints. This year, the average is already 972 forints – but in many places it exceeds a thousand. The price of a bread roll has almost tripled since 2019: it increased from 25 forints to 71. A similar trajectory has been followed by cocoa snails, which cost 147 forints in 2020 and are now available at an average price of around 270 forints.

Flour has not been left out either: 1 kilogram of fine flour cost 158 forints in 2019, by 2024 it had already become 222 forints, and this year the average price is 238 forints.

Low quality – raw materials are also expensive

One of the main reasons for the increase in bakery prices is the shortage of milling wheat. Although the 2024 harvest totaled 5.3 million tons, only 10–15% of this was suitable for bread grain production. The remaining batches were utilized as feed or in even poorer quality, which further narrowed the range of available raw materials and drove prices up.

Moreover, although the national average yield was 5.8 tons per hectare, slightly above the five-year average, the milling industry was still unable to obtain enough good-quality wheat to significantly stabilize the market.