Italy's Inflation Hits 5.4% and Third-Quarter Growth Stalls as Fuel Blockades Empty Southern Shelves

Since truckers and farmers began blocking roads, ports and fuel depots across southern Italy in mid-October, the damage has moved from supermarket shelves into the national numbers. Italy's statistics agency Istat said today, Oct. 30, that inflation hit 5.4% in October from a year earlier, up from 4.2% in September.

Energy is the driver. Istat said energy prices rose 31.4% year on year, up from 22.6% in September, a rise it said "remains influenced by the international geopolitical context." Food and transport costs also climbed.

The same release showed the economy going nowhere. Preliminary data put third-quarter GDP growth at 0.02%, below the 0.1% that FactSet and Bloomberg forecasts expected. Growth was 0.2% in the second quarter and 0.3% in the first.

ING analysts said the result "casts doubt about the attainability" of the government's 1% growth target. Earlier this month the Bank of Italy raised its 2026 forecast to 0.9% from 0.6%, saying geopolitical factors had turned out less severe than expected.

Why the trucks stopped

Diesel costs roughly a third more than before the Iran war, and a temporary diesel tax discount expired earlier this month. Truckers and farmers say they cannot absorb it.

"It's become impossible to face the costs of fuel," said Luigi Di Benedetto, who manages an agricultural business in Caltagirone, Sicily. Vincenzo Aleccia, president of a trucking group in the Sicilian port of Trapani, called the action "a peaceful protest" that is "for the benefit of the people."

The government has approved aid for transport, farming and fishing. On Tuesday, Transport Minister Matteo Salvini met union representatives and promised to release €480 million ($539 million) aimed at the fuel crisis. Some union representatives said the blockades would go on until concrete measures are in place.

Pasta and mozzarella stop

Buffalo mozzarella must be made within 60 hours of milking. With trucks stopped, milk could not reach dairies near Naples. Pier Maria Saccani, director of the consortium that oversees Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP, said about 1 million liters went unused in a single day. "Yesterday, no mozzarella was produced," he said, putting the loss at €3 million in 24 hours.

Saccani said producers' costs had already risen about 30% before the blockades and that they had absorbed most of the increase themselves.

Pasta makers ran out of ingredients. Rummo, based in Campania, suspended production. La Molisana halted its Campobasso plant. Garofalo stopped on Saturday and restarted Monday at 40% of capacity.

"Our main customers have stocks, but I don't know how long they will last," Garofalo chief executive Massimo Menna said. He added that he understood the reasons behind the protests but feared for poorer households: "In times of crisis, it's always the least well-off who suffer the most."

Retail group Federdistribuzione said fresh food rotted in warehouses in Campania, Puglia and Calabria. Supermarkets in Naples posted apologies on empty shelves, and Sicily ran short of fresh pasta, cheese and meat.

The blockaders are hurting their own region. "We realized we were only hurting half of Italy, our half, the south," said Giuseppe Richichi, president of a Sicilian truckers' association.

Milan riots and the crackdown

The fuel protests have overlapped with street violence in Milan. After looting and rioting over the weekend by groups of mostly young protesters, some luxury brands kept shops in the city centre shut.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said nearly 200 police officers were injured and 330 people detained, half of them of foreign origin, meaning born abroad or born in Italy to foreign-born parents. "Destroying and stealing is not protest, it is crime, and the state's response must be firm," she said.

The cabinet approved sending 500 troops to Milan. It also approved easier detention of minors, a new crime of violent participation in a demonstration, and fines on parents for damage their children cause at protests.

It did not approve policing powers for soldiers, as had been expected. Italian media reported that President Sergio Mattarella opposed the idea.

Friday's strike

Today's general strike, called by the grassroots union USB, drew protests in more than 50 cities. In Turin, farmers tipped two bins of manure in front of city hall before tens of thousands marched against living costs and military spending. A speaker told the crowd the farmers were acting "against those who want to turn Turin into the city of arms companies."

Farmers marched with truck drivers, students and taxi drivers. The southern blockades got far less attention than the marches in Milan and Bologna.

Meloni faces elections next year, with the economy, security and immigration expected to be the main issues. She now has inflation at its highest level in more than three years, a stalled economy and a transport sector that says it will stay on the roads.

It is unclear whether the €480 million Salvini promised reaches truckers and farmers fast enough to lift the blockades, and whether it is enough to bring the diesel bill down before more plants go dark.