Dutch households are spending so much on takeaway meals that it is impacting national inflation, the Dutch central bank DNB has reported.
Delivery meals have nearly doubled as a share of the average shopping basket, from around 1.6% in 2015 to just over 3% today, DNB said on Thursday.
Prices have climbed fast. With more people spending, delivery firms have also passed on higher wage, energy and ingredient costs, and between 2020 and 2023 the category went from adding less than 0.1 percentage point to inflation to a full 0.35 point.
It has since eased back to 0.13 point – but only because prices stopped rising so fast, not because anyone is ordering less, DNB said.
The bank traces consumer habits back to the Covid pandemic, when locked-down households began using ordering apps much more, especially while working from home.
Dutch inflation has sat above the European Central Bank’s 2% target for years, driven mainly by rents and food prices. The pizza and sushi deliveries are now also hitting the figures.
