High consumer prices, 11.4% of Germans cannot afford proper meals

Traditional German dishes are no longer affordable for some people. (Source: Alamy)

Specifically, the number of Germans who do not have enough money for meals including meat, fish or vegetarian food... has increased annually from 0.9% to 11.4%.

This means nearly 10 million people in the European Union’s most populous country regularly lack adequate food, with the shocking figure rising to 19.3% among single parents – marking a 2.6% increase on the previous year.

The leader of the opposition party in the German parliament Dietmar Bartsch called for a temporary suspension of sales tax on essential food items and for the state to control supermarket prices.

“The higher the price of staple goods, the more people eat noodles with tomato sauce,” Dietmar Bartsch stressed.

Children are among the groups particularly vulnerable to this problem, he added, calling for the introduction of a basic child benefit.

Germany, along with several other EU member states, is grappling with rising consumer prices that are forcing people to cut back on spending. Inflation in the eurozone's top economy hit 6.4% year-on-year in June.