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Irish household spend on food is lowest in EU

New Eurostat figures show that Irish households spent the lowest share of their expenditure on food and non-alcohol beverages in the EU in 2021 at 8.3% compared with an EU average of 14.3%.

By contrast, countries such as Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria spent over 20% of their household expenditure on food and non-alcoholic drinks.

The Eurostat figures also show that Irish households spent about 2.5% of their household expenditure on alcohol in 2021 – above the EU average of 1.8%.

Household expenditure on alcohol in 2021 was highest in Latvia at 5%, and lowest in Italy at 1%.

In 2021, households in the EU spent over €1 035 billion (equivalent to 7.1% of the total EU GDP) on food and non-alcoholic beverages.

Decrease

This represents a share of 14.3% of total household expenditure. Compared with 2020 (14.8% share), this represents a decrease of 0.5 percentage points.

The highest shares for food and non-alcoholic beverage expenditure in 2021 were registered in Romania (24.8%), Lithuania (20.4%), Bulgaria (20.1%), Estonia (19.9%), Poland and Slovakia (both 19.6%).

The lowest shares were in Ireland (8.3%), Luxembourg (9.0%), Austria (10.9%), Denmark and Germany (both 11.8%).