Broccoli Takes a Bite Out of Portuguese Budgets After 39% Surge

Portuguese families who thought the worst of food-price inflation was over may want to look again at their receipts. The familiar green florets that regularly star in a sopa cremosa now cost almost €4 a kilo, and that single figure says plenty about the pressures still rippling through the national food chain, from drought-hit fields to supermarket aisles.

Shopping Shock: Broccoli Tops 2025’s Inflation League

Even in a year of stubbornly high grocery bills, the surge in broccoli stands out. A kilo that fetched €2.79 on 1 January is now tagged at €3.87, a 39 % leap according to DECO PROteste’s weekly cabaz tracking. The same report notes a fresh 12-cent jump between 24 September and 1 October alone. That makes broccoli the fastest climber in the sample of 63 everyday staples, overtaking headline items such as beef, eggs and oranges and turning a once-affordable side dish into a small luxury for many households.

What Is Driving the Spike?

Growers cite a cocktail of higher fertiliser costs, lingering energy price shocks, and an increasingly erratic climate. Broccoli thrives in the 13-20 °C window; summer heatwaves that repeatedly breached 35 °C scorched heads and trimmed yields in Ribatejo and Oeste, two of the crop’s main hubs. Import buffers have been thin as well, with Spanish and French farmers wrestling with similar weather extremes. Without a surge in supply, producers have had little choice but to pass rising production costs down the chain.

Basket Snapshot: A Dip That Still Hurts the Wallet

Paradoxically, DECO PROteste’s overall basket eased 0.20 % to €241.97 in the last reading. Yet that tiny retreat leaves groceries €5.81 dearer than in January and almost 29 % above the level of early-2022—one of the sharpest multi-year climbs in Western Europe. Pantry items such as canned tuna and rice have stopped ballooning, but fresh produce and proteins continue to edge higher, blunting the relief many shoppers felt when inflation headlines began to cool.

From Potatoes to Coffee: The Movers Behind the Numbers

Price volatility has grown more granular. Over the final week of September red potatoes shot up 11 %, while hake medallions and cereal flakes each added 8 %. Zoom out to 2025 as a whole and a different trio leads: ground roasted coffee +29 %, oranges +28 %, and eggs +28 %. Look back to the first pandemic-era index in 2022 and meat still dominates—stewing beef is 97 % pricier, with eggs up 81 %. The pattern shows shoppers are not battling one monolithic inflation wave but a series of overlapping micro-surges that demand constant menu juggling.

Supply Side vs Checkout Prices: Government Options

Lisbon’s main lever remains the PEPAC farm-support scheme, expanded this year by €300 M to lift basic income aid from €82 to €126 per hectare. There is also a temporary VAT exemption on fertilisers and feed through December, designed to pull production costs down. But policymakers have stopped short of imposing a zero-IVA basket for fresh fruit and vegetables or brokering price pacts with large retailers. Officials insist that shoring up domestic output—including a planned 20 % expansion of Bimi (a broccoli cousin) hectares next season—is more durable than capping shelf prices, though consumer groups counter that relief is not trickling through fast enough.

Looking Ahead: Can Shoppers Expect Relief?

Meteorologists expect an unusually dry October, the kind of forecast that could keep vegetable volumes tight into the Christmas rush. Analysts say meaningful respite hinges on three moving parts: a cool-down in global energy markets, faster delivery of PEPAC grants, and the arrival of the winter Spanish crop that usually tempers prices here. Until then, nutritionists suggest rotating to couve-flor or frozen mixes, while home gardeners in temperate coastal zones may still manage a late sowing. For now, though, adding broccoli to the dinner plate means paying restaurant-level prices in the home kitchen—a reminder that the food inflation story in Portugal is far from over.