Soaring ingredient prices — from meat and tomatoes to flour, sauces, and dough — have squeezed operating costs for both souvlaki shops and pizzerias, intensifying competition between two of Greece’s most popular street foods. While both souvlaki and pizza face similar inflationary pressures amid the current crisis linked to the Middle East conflict, their price trajectories over recent years have diverged significantly.
A Tale of Two Prices
In 2019, a standard souvlaki cost €2. Today, it regularly exceeds €5 — more than doubling in price over roughly six years, with cumulative increases reaching around 150%. In contrast, a classic Margherita pizza rose from approximately €6 to about €9 — an increase of up to 50%. Moreover, chain pizzerias often offer discounts or lower-priced options, especially for takeaway orders, helping keep per-unit costs competitive.
Why Pizza Has Held Up Better
This relative stability is partly due to differences in input costs. According to market insiders, key pizza ingredients — like cheese, tomato passata, and flour — haven’t surged as sharply as those for souvlaki, particularly meat, which has seen double-digit price hikes. The war in Ukraine further disrupted supply chains for staples such as wheat and sunflower oil — critical for many pizzerias — prompting consumer backlash in Italy and pushing up costs across Southern Europe.
In Greece, raw material prices spiked notably between 2021 and 2022, driving annual pizza price increases of around 13%. A further average rise of about 15% was added in 2023, largely tied to higher olive oil, energy, and transportation costs.
Structure Matters
Despite ongoing cost pressures, pizza remains comparatively affordable and widely popular — thanks in part to market structure. The sector is dominated by established national chains with strong bargaining power over suppliers. This allows them to secure better bulk pricing and absorb some cost increases internally, limiting how much they must pass on to consumers.
The souvlaki market, by contrast, is highly fragmented — led mostly by small, independent vendors with limited negotiating leverage. Without economies of scale or centralized procurement, these businesses face steeper input-cost pressure and narrower margins.
Tourism Adds Another Layer
Souvlaki’s status as a quintessential Greek culinary export has also exposed it to tourism-driven demand spikes. Foreign visitors’ willingness to pay premium prices — especially in high-footfall urban and coastal areas — has contributed to upward pricing momentum, making it less sensitive to domestic affordability concerns.