In 2019, Maltese spent 12.5% of their total household consumption expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages, Eurostat statistics showed.

This amounts to 6.8% of GDP or €916 million in total.

Ten years prior, back in 2009, Maltese households spent a higher percentage of the total household consumption expenditure on such items (15.9%). This amounted to a higher percentage of GDP back then (10.7%) or €667.8 million in total.

In terms of the EU as a whole, EU households spent over €956 bn (equivalent to 6.8% of EU GDP) on 'food and non-alcoholic beverages'. This represents 13% of total consumption expenditure and ranks as the third-largest category of household expenditure after 'housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels', which accounted for 23.5% of household expenditure, and 'transport' (13.1%).

The three countries with the highest such expenditure are Romania, Lithuania and Estonia. Households in Romania spent around a fourth of total household consumption expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages (26.0%), households in Lithuania (20.2%) and Estonia (19.3%).

In contrast, the share of expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages was less than 10% in three EU Member States: Ireland (8.6%), Luxembourg (8.9%) and Austria (9.7%).

Between 2009 and 2019, the share of total household expenditure on food fell or remained stable in most EU Member States. The largest decrease was recorded in Lithuania (from 25.4% of total household expenditure in 2009 to 20.2% in 2019, a fall of 5.2 percentage points (pp)), followed by Malta (-3.4 pp) and Poland (-3.0 pp).

In contrast, household expenditure on food increased in seven EU Member States. The largest increase was recorded in Czechia (from 14.2% in 2009 to 15.5% in 2019, +1.3 pp), followed by Slovakia (+1.1 pp), Hungary (+0.5 pp) and the Netherlands (+0.4 pp).

Eurostat also released another statistic related to household expenditure, in relation to communications.

In 2019, households in the EU spent €175 billion (equivalent to 1.3% of EU GDP) on ‘communications’ such as postal services, telephone and telefax equipment and services. This represents 2.4% of total household consumption expenditure.

In Malta, households spent €208.9 million on ‘communications’, which represents 2.9% of total household consumption expenditure.

Households in Bulgaria spend the highest share, Luxembourg spends the least

In 2019, the share of communication-related household expenditure was highest in Bulgaria (4.7%), followed by Croatia (4.0%), Greece (3.9%) and Romania (3.4%).

At the other end of the scale, households in Luxembourg spent the lowest share of household expenditure on communications (1.3%), followed by households in Denmark and Austria (both 1.9%).