Italy calls a crisis meeting after pasta prices jump 20 percent

(CBS NEWS) – Consumers in some countries might not bat an eye at rising macaroni prices. But in Italy, where the food is part of the national identity, skyrocketing pasta prices are cause for a national crisis.

Italy's Industry Minister Adolfo Urso has convened a crisis commission to discuss the country's soaring pasta costs. The cost of the staple food rose 17.5% during the past year through March, Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported. That's more than twice the rate of inflation in Italy, which stood at 8.1% in March, European Central Bank data shows.

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In nearly all of the pasta-crazed country's provinces, where roughly 60% of people eat pasta daily, the average cost of the staple has exceeded $2.20 per kilo, the Washington Post reported. And in Siena, a city in Tuscany, pasta jumped from about $1.50 a kilo a year ago to $2.37, a 58% increase, consumer-rights group Assoutenti found.

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