I could again emphasize my own eating habits. Since conventional food in Czechia doesn’t suit me, and conventional Czech products don’t meet my standards, I eat almost exclusively organic food, Dutch cheeses, and veg products while I’m in Czechia. This leads me to an interesting realization: Czechs often complain about rising food prices, and yet I have been paying roughly the same amount for years. “Roughly,” because I truly do pay the same—possibly even less—since I no longer need to buy my food in specialty stores but can buy everything in supermarkets. My weekly spending on organic groceries (vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat) and veg convenience foods in Czechia is about 50 EUR. To be fair, I typically eat meat only twice a week—unless it’s non-organic hamburgers in fast food. Fifty euros has been my weekly food budget for over ten years. So it seems that food prices in Czechia are rising somewhere other than in the category of the higher-quality foods I buy. Or perhaps I simply don’t feel the price increases.
The debate on food prices in Europe often collapses into the simplistic claim that “everything is more expensive in the West.” But the reality is far more complex—especially when prices are viewed in relation to income rather than in isolation. And this ratio—how many hours a person must work to afford a basic grocery basket—reveals one surprising trend:
In the Netherlands, basic food is relatively cheaper than in the Czech Republic.
The difference is clear:
– The Dutch minimum wage is among the highest in the EU.
– The Czech minimum wage, even after recent increases, remains significantly lower.
Therefore, the share of income that someone in the Netherlands must spend on basic food is much smaller than in Czechia. In other words: a Dutch worker earning minimum wage can buy more food for one hour of work than a Czech worker earning minimum wage.
Cheese is an interesting example. In Czechia, sliced cheese is typically sold in 100–150 g packs at relatively high prices. In the Netherlands, 300–450 g packs are standard—often of higher quality—and cheaper per gram.
This is no coincidence. The Netherlands is one of Europe’s largest cheese producers—Gouda, Edam, Maasdam, Beemster. These are not only cultural icons but also the reason why high-quality cheese is more affordable there than in Czech stores, which offer Czech cheeses that are simply not on the same level as Dutch ones.
Other structural differences in agriculture and retail also come into play. The Netherlands is a global leader in advanced greenhouse technologies and food production efficiency, which keeps the prices of many everyday foods lower than one might expect. Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are typical examples—produced in huge quantities with high efficiency. Private-label supermarket brands also play a major role: they maintain quality while keeping prices down. Dutch supermarket chains have a long tradition of strong private labels, and consumers prefer them, which creates competition that keeps the cost of basic groceries low.
Another reality is that the four-day workweek is extremely widespread in the Netherlands, with many qualified positions offering a four-day schedule while maintaining a full monthly salary corresponding to a traditional five-day contract. A Dutch worker therefore often enjoys more free time and a visibly higher income than someone in Czechia.
The Czech reality is thus paradoxical: people end up paying more for their basic cost of living than workers in one of Europe’s richest countries—workers who often work significantly fewer hours.
