Hello
@****bow, I hope you won't mind me for writing in English, as my German is bad.
As a person from Croatia, I will try to answer your questions. What you wrote about average salary is partly true, as average ( talking about statistic average for whole country) neto salary in Croatia for September 2020 is 765 €. I am teacher in primary school, and 850€ (plus travel subsidizes) is an average income for people employed in public services mostly, goes little bit more up the longer you work and if you have children (lower taxes then and social benefits).
So, if you have average family (4 members) you will spend around 40% of your income (from 765€) which is around 306€ on food. Total costs for one average family is around 893€ per month, which means that from one average salary (765€) you cover around 80% of you living costs. Meaning average family is in minus 128€ per month if only one parent works. This data is taken from monthly Union (Gewerkschaft/syndikat) report for September 2020. Coast goes up if you are renting an apartment.
This average salary variate from regions (above average is in Zagreb and Istria region, under average is in Lika and Slavonia regions of Croatia).
As I work in village schools mostly I can confirm that in rural areas people mostly grow their own food, people living in cities mostly buy their food.
I live in very small town in family house and last few years we started to grown our own vegetables in garden but still in my household we still buy 80% of our needs for vegetables in supermarket.
People in rural area don't eat in restaurants, it's more popular in cities. Eating in restaurant is much cheaper compared to Germany for example. Prices in restaurants in Croatia varies from region to region, if you visit sea side (Istria and Dalmatia) it's expensive for average Croatian consumer. Prices in Slavonia region where I live are affordable. For example I had guests from Germany, we had meal for 4 persons (grilled meat+beer) in average restaurant, total price was around 35€ (beer 0.5L is around 2€ and food around 7€ per person). They were surprised how much food they got as portions are quite big here in restaurants.
Croatia has second worst average for children living with parents in EU, it's around 32 years of age. There are partly culturaly and partly economic reasons for that.
About food prices, talking about fruits and vegetables, price depends on season. When it's season prices go down, in off season they are higher, like everywhere. I lived in Germany and Ireland and I can say that lots of things (food) in supermarket are cheaper there then in Croatia. One of main reason for that are taxes, as in Croatia VAT is 25% on almost everything.
I hope I answered your questions, if you wanna know more about, feel free to ask. Have a good evening.
P.S.
Sorry for long answer, professional deformation 😁