Coldiretti: Pasta prices boil over in Italy

Rome / IT. (aga) The price of pasta, Italy´s staple food, soared by 30,4 percent in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year, Italy´s treasury ministry said in a statement. The price of bread rose 13,2 percent and milk by 11,8 percent in the same period. Only fuel oil, which went up 32 percent, and diesel, up 31,1 percent, outpaced pasta. Pasta prices are a record 4,80 EUR a kilo in the northern city of Aosta. Italy´s main agricultural organisation Coldiretti denounced what it called «distortions and the series of markups between wheat field and table that have caused prices to skyrocket for Italians». According to Coldiretti, the price of a kilo of pasta rises 369 percent from producer to consumer, bread 1’325 percent, and milk 241 percent.