It checked out the cost of 500g of fresh minced beef in various EU countries. The meat prices selected were the cheapest from large supermarket chains’ websites or online catalogues.
Then, to account for differences in the purchasing power of shoppers in each country, Euronews looked at how many hours of work paid at the local minimum wage, is needed to purchase the beef.
Greece was the worst off, with the most expensive meat and the lowest minimum wage making it the least affordable of the countries the survey looked at.
Minimum wage
In Greece people would have to work 1.2 hours on minimum wage to purchase beef at €4.50, the research suggested.
Based just on prices alone, France was the second highest, paying €4.32 for a half a kilo of beef, followed by Germany at €3.98, Malta at €3.47 and Spain at €2.97.
Factoring in the hours of work at the local minimum wage the listing changed. Second comes Romania where a person would have to work 1.09 hours to afford the half kilo of beef mince followed by Hungry 0.9 hours; Estonia 0.75 hours and Spain 0.6 hours.