Food inflation is 0.6%. Yours isn't.

ELSTAT measures everyone's basket. Your kitchen buys its own. The 5-item watch list shows you what actually went up.

Stergiani Karypi

Hospitality Advisor, F&B Cost Control

In September, Greek food prices rose just 0.6%, according to ELSTAT. Sounds like good news. Yet in the same release, beef is up 12.3%, lamb and goat 9.7% and eggs 6.6%. Olive oil fell 11.9%. The 0.6% is the average of all of that. Your kitchen does not buy the average.

An average nobody actually buys

ELSTAT's index measures the basket of an average household: a little of everything. A professional kitchen does not buy like that. A grill house buys mostly meat. A café buys mostly milk, coffee and bread.

When some items go up and others go down, the average evens them out. That way it hides exactly what you need to see.

One note: ELSTAT measures retail prices, not your suppliers' price lists. It does show which items are moving, and in which direction. That is enough to tell you where to look.

Same month, two different kitchens

Take two illustrative purchasing baskets and apply September's prices from the same release.

A grill house. 75% of its purchases are meat. Its basket went up by about 6.1%. Ten times the official figure.

A café. Milk and coffee got cheaper. Eggs, bread and cheese went up. One cancels out the other, and the basket comes out at almost 0%.

The baskets: grill house with beef 30%, lamb 20%, pork 15%, poultry 10%, vegetables 15%, olive oil 5%, bread 5%. Café with milk 25%, coffee 20%, bread and bakery 25%, eggs 15%, cheese 15%.

Careful with that almost 0%, though. It does not mean nothing went up. Eggs rose 6.6%, above the 5% threshold you will see below. The average hides the extremes inside a single kitchen too.

The grill house needs to look at its prices now. The café needs to look at its eggs. If both only watched the 0.6%, both would make the wrong call.

Why the price list comes later

Energy went up far more than food. In one year, diesel rose 38.8%, natural gas 55.2% and electricity 15.0%.

For your supplier, that is the cost of refrigeration, production and transport. They do not pass it on straight away. They pass it on gradually, usually with the next price list.

The first signs are already here. The prices Greek food manufacturers charge rose 1.9% in August. And from 1 October, cheese makers raised feta prices by 5% to 9%, according to press reports. The main reason: less sheep's milk after the sheep pox outbreak.

The 5-item watch list

You do not need to track 300 product codes. A few items make up most of the cost. The classic ABC analysis shows that roughly 20% of items account for 70% to 80% of ingredient cost. The five biggest of those are your list.

Here is the method, in full:

1. Find your 5. Pull the last three months of purchases by item. Rank them by value in euros. Keep the top five.
2. Write down a base price. The last agreed price, or the average of the quarter.
3. Check every invoice, line by line. Unit price against the base, not just the total.
4. The threshold is 5%. Under 5%, note it. Over 5%, act within the week.
5. Three moves above the threshold. Ask for a written price or a reason. Ask a second supplier for a quote. Re-cost the dishes that use the item. Then decide: absorb it, change the recipe or change the menu price.

Illustrative example. Five lines, once a week.

ELSTAT's inflation is the average of everything. Yours is the average of what you buy.

Price drops count too

The list does not only catch increases. At retail, olive oil is down 11.9% and fresh milk 4.1%. If your price list has not changed, ask for the reduction. It is the easiest supplier conversation of the month.

Increases always arrive by email. Decreases you have to ask for.

Five lines, every Monday

The 5-item watch list takes ten minutes a week. It sits on the same sheet as your weekly prime cost.

New price lists are coming this month. Go one step further: ask for a written quarterly price on your five items before the new list lands.

The official index tells you what happened in the country. The watch list tells you what happened in your kitchen.

Sources: ELSTAT, Consumer Price Index, September 2026 (9 October 2026). ELSTAT, Producer Price Index in Industry, August 2026 (30 September 2026). ABC analysis: Hayes, Miller and Dopson, Food and Beverage Cost Control, Wiley, chapter 5. Feta price rises: ot.gr (26 September 2026). Both baskets and the table are illustrative.