Ahmad Esmailzadeh, director general of the Community Nutrition Improvement Office at the Health Ministry of the Iranian regime, warned about the negative consequences of rising food prices—especially dairy products and protein sources—on the nutritional health of Iran’s population.

In an interview with ISNA, a state-run news agency, on Sunday, December 21, Esmailzadeh referred to the continued price hikes in the country and said: “In recent months, concerns about people’s nutrition have multiplied, and there is a fear that people may suffer from nutrient deficiencies.”

Runaway Price Increases and the Shadow of Hyperinflation Over Iran’s Economy

He added that the Health Ministry has repeatedly warned that rising food prices could lead to people’s “malnutrition,” because “even middle and higher income deciles” under current conditions have reduced their consumption of dairy and protein.

In recent weeks, an unprecedented rise in food prices and basic goods in Iran has placed heavy pressure on citizens’ lives.

Experts and social activists have warned that the continuation of this trend could have serious consequences, including damage to public health, the spread of malnutrition, and intensified psychological pressure on society.

The need to allocate subsidies for people’s nutrition

Continuing his interview, Esmailzadeh called for the allocation of subsidies in the field of nutrition and stressed that such a subsidy is “not a waste of resources.”

He said: “A subsidy for the nutrition sector is a form of prevention against the emergence of chronic diseases in the coming years, which costs far less than treatment.”

According to this Health Ministry official of the regime, if the government allocates “one percent of the taxes from food factories” to the Community Nutrition Improvement Office, these resources “could significantly reduce the burden on the country’s healthcare system in the coming years.”

On October 20, the Rouydad24 news website reported that with the intensification of the economic crisis and a sharp decline in people’s purchasing power, a growing number of Iranian citizens have lost the ability to secure essential food items, and malnutrition has now become a factor in about 35% of deaths in the country.

Warning about the consequences of malnutrition

Esmailzadeh also warned about the long-term consequences of the food crisis in the country and said: “Suffering from malnutrition leads to a reduction in the workforce in the future.”

He added: “The effects of reduced consumption of dairy, fruits, vegetables, and legumes will appear in the form of increased chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, strokes, osteoporosis, fractures, and other health problems.”

According to Esmailzadeh, the burden resulting from such conditions “will fall on this ministry,” forcing it to spend more on treatment.

Following the Iranian regime’s ineffective policies in economic, domestic, and foreign affairs over recent decades, runaway inflation has severely affected citizens’ lives, and the prices of basic goods have faced an unprecedented surge.

This comes as Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh, the agriculture minister of the Iranian regime, on October 8 described the trend of rising prices in the country as “logical” and said that food prices in Iran are “cheap even compared to global prices.”

Criticism over the lack of practical action to improve conditions

Esmailzadeh stated that if resources are allocated to the Community Nutrition Improvement Office of the Health Ministry, programs such as the distribution of milk in schools would be implemented.

At the same time, he acknowledged: “The current situation is such that we constantly have to talk about the worsening of malnutrition or point to the reduction in calcium and protein consumption. Unfortunately, many issues remain only at the level of words and talk, and there is no practical action beyond that.”

In November, media in Iran reported that despite the Education Ministry’s promise to distribute milk in Iranian schools, the plan has been implemented in only four provinces.

This is while in the current year’s budget, 65 trillion rials (approximately 50 million dollars) had been allocated for the implementation of this plan.

At the same time as the deterioration of living conditions for working-class households and wages falling far behind living costs, an inspector from the Iranian regime’s Supreme Council of Islamic Labor Councils said that with this runaway inflation and soaring prices, there is no longer any table left for workers.

Habib Sadeghzadeh Tabrizi told ILNA, a state-run news agency, on Sunday, December 21: “One gram of gold is equivalent to about one month of a worker’s minimum wage,” describing this as indicative of the deep gap between wages approved by the Supreme Labor Council and the real cost of living.

Labor Organizations Indicate that Iran’s Minimum Wage Next Year Must Be 600 Million Rials

Currently, the base wage for workers covered by the Labor Law is close to 110 million rials (approximately 85 dollars) per month. This amount, including benefits, reaches about 150 million rials (approximately 115 dollars) per month. In contrast, some government-aligned labor groups have said that the monthly cost-of-living basket has reached 580 million rials (approximately 654 dollars).

Previously, the Haft-Tappeh Sugarcane Workers’ Syndicate, the Coordinating Committee to Help Form Labor Organizations, Khuzestan retired workers, and the Eighth of Azar Retirees’ اتحاد group had stressed in a joint statement that the minimum wage for the coming year should be 600 million rials (approximately 462 dollars).

These independent labor and retiree groups had called in 2024 for setting a wage of 400 to 450 million rials (approximately 308 to 346 dollars) for the current year.

Referring to Article 41 of the Labor Law, adopted in 1990, Sadeghzadeh Tabrizi said that this legal article, which was supposed to set wages based on inflation and living costs, has today turned into an ineffective text.

The two notes of Article 41 of the Labor Law stress that the minimum wage for workers must be set based on the inflation rate and the cost of living of a working-class household. However, over the years, members of the Supreme Labor Council have ignored the second note and set the following year’s wage at a level that has been even lower than that same year’s living costs.

Labor activists and independent labor organizations have described this approach as a policy of “wage suppression.”

Sadeghzadeh Tabrizi added in his interview with ILNA that the Supreme Labor Council sets wages at the end of each year, but those wages lose their value even before being deposited into workers’ accounts.

He added that the wage for 2025 was set based on a dollar exchange rate of 850,000 rials, while now, with only three months remaining until the end of the year (the Iranian New Year begins on March 21, 2026), the dollar has reached a rate of 1.31 million rials.

Sadeghzadeh Tabrizi pointed out that the stark gap between official decisions and economic realities has placed workers in a situation where they no longer have the ability to plan their daily lives.

In this regard, Majid Rahmati, a board member of the Islamic Labor Council Association of Tehran Province, told ILNA on Friday, December 19: “According to a report by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare that I reviewed in Azar, household calorie consumption has dropped by about 30% compared to ten years ago.”

Emphasizing that reduced consumption of dairy products and basic food items carries social consequences and serious health impacts, he said: “When a family cannot provide an adequate food basket, especially for its child or infant, the ground is effectively laid for illness and malnutrition.”

Also according to ILNA, Sadeghzadeh Tabrizi in part of his remarks referred to workers paying taxes and stressed: “Workers whose wages do not even cover basic living expenses should not be subjected to additional tax pressure.”

Earlier, Somayeh Golpour, head of the Supreme Association of Workers’ Trade Unions, had suggested to the Eghtesadnews website on Friday, December 19 that because inflation for 2026 is not considered in the cost-of-living basket, “the equivalent of one and a half grams of gold per month from Farvardin to Esfand should form the basis of the minimum wage.”

She added that this measure should “also include those who work in contracting jobs, employees who receive the minimum wage, and retirees who are affected.”

Golpour also said that another proposal is for the constitutional legal obligations—namely the provision of housing, full and free healthcare, free education, and free transportation—to be implemented.

According to her, these are matters that “have existed in the heart of the constitution for years, and deprived groups, lower deciles, workers, and retirees have suffered from their non-implementation.”

Golpour noted in this interview that 80% of workers’ wages are spent on housing costs.

At the same time as criticism mounts over the living conditions of workers and other wage earners, the government of Iranian regime president Masoud Pezeshkian is seeking, through parliament, to amend Article 41 of the Labor Law by removing the “cost of living” criterion from minimum wage calculations and limiting wage increases solely to the official inflation rate.

Ahmad Meydari, the minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, said on Wednesday, December 17 about the government’s plan to raise workers’ wages next year: “A law is under review in parliament according to which wage increases must be at least in line with inflation, which we are also taking into account, and after reviewing all these issues, it will become clear how the matter can be pursued with workers and employers.”

In this way, the Pezeshkian government is seeking to remove the second note—namely “living costs”—from wage determination calculations.

The publication of these remarks has sparked criticism from users in workers’ Telegram groups, with one user describing the labor minister’s proposed move as “decision-making against the people.”

On the eve of Yalda Night, the longest night of the year in Iranian culture, a 40% to 100% increase in the prices of nuts, dried fruits, and sweets has significantly reduced demand, to the point that some sellers are offering installment purchases and even accepting checks as a way to attract customers.

The state-run website Didban Iran wrote on Thursday, December 18, citing “official reports,” that the prices of various types of nuts and dried fruits have risen by 40% compared to last year, and by up to 100% for some items such as pistachios and cashews.

The website, quoting figures from the nut-selling trade, identified rising production costs, currency fluctuations, and higher packaging expenses as the main factors behind the price surge.

Iran: Rising Gasoline Prices and the Unprecedented Collapse of the Rial

According to the report, sellers say demand has declined noticeably compared to last year.

Mehdi Bakhtiari-Zadeh, acting head of Tehran Municipality’s Fruit and Vegetable Markets Organization, said on Wednesday, December 17, that the price of Yalda Night nuts has increased by 40% to 45% compared to last year.

According to him, the final price of sweet nut mixes with baslouq this year is 6.66 million rials per kilogram, while last year people bought the same amount for about 4 million to 4.5 million rials. At present, one US dollar is worth about 1.31 million rials, and the base monthly wage of a worker with two children barely reaches 115 dollars.

Didban Iran noted that following rising prices and declining purchasing power, some shops and nut sellers have been forced to adopt alternative methods to attract customers, such as “installment sales” and even “accepting checks” for nut purchases.

Sweets in boxes that grow smaller by the day

Rising prices and economic hardship have also changed the true taste of “sweets.” For many, sweets are no longer sweet but instead a reminder of the bitterness of being unable to afford even simple items.

The state-run ILNA news agency quoted the head of the Tehran Confectioners, Pastry Sellers, and Café-Confectioners Union as saying: “We have no shortage of raw materials for sweets, but due to high prices, purchases have been reduced to half-kilogram boxes.”

From Ali Bahramand’s remarks to ILNA, it can be concluded that the prices of oil and eggs—two essential ingredients for baking sweets—have increased by about 167% and 200%, respectively, compared to the same period last year, causing sweet purchases to drop by half compared to last year.

The price hikes ahead of Yalda Night come as the prices of essential goods have risen in recent months with government approval.

The prices of dairy products, which are key ingredients for many Yalda sweets and snacks, have increased significantly.

In recent days, dairy prices have seen sudden and sharp increases, and in the absence of effective market oversight, livelihood pressures on families have intensified. Dairy products have long been removed from the food basket of low-income groups, making malnutrition a common condition for them.

This comes as Iranian regime officials have repeatedly spoken of supporting the public and controlling prices, while the daily experience of citizens shows that prices in Iran rise on a daily basis and living costs are no longer affordable for many families.