Flour, with strong increases in January, as detected in stores and minimarkets / demian alday
In the order of 6 to 8 percent was the price increase in January for the products of the food basket that are sold in stores and mini markets, according to calculations made in these businesses, at the Regional and Buenos Aires level.
The data comes from the variations with respect to the month of December at the time of supplying merchandise that will later go to the gondola or shelf. In this sector, they are managed in a marketing chain that is outside the Fair Prices program of the National Government, which in its first stage provided for increases of up to 4 percent per month for the months of this summer and has now been extended to June, with more products (from 2,000 to 50,000) and a 3.2 percent ceiling.
The president of the Buenos Aires Federation of Storekeepers, Fernando Savore, said in a talk with this newspaper that “in January we saw that some companies, very few, complied with the 4 percent increase agreement. For example, the most important dairy rose 4 percent. But the rest of the dairy, was between 4 and 9 percent.
no subsidy
Along these lines, he added that “apparently, due to the removal of the flour subsidy, the one-kilo package went up,” he said and explained that “three zeros flour was 110 pesos and today we have to sell it at 140 or 150 pesos.” .
Already in February, in stores in the City, this product can be seen well above those values. For example, in a gondola of a downtown mini market, yesterday one of the leading brands was sold for 220 pesos.
According to the leader, the rise in flour pushes other products: “That generates a strong blow in derivatives and what is cookies increased 10 in January and 10 in December.”
In the middle of the month, a consumer entity was already measuring a rise of 2.27% in the basket
It is not all. According to the head of the entity that brings together small businesses, among the most outstanding segments of increases for the month also appear “cleaning and personal hygiene, which had a rise of 12 percent; grass, 7 percent; and cold cuts, between 6 and 7 percent”.
All in all, it is estimated these days that January was above the 4.7 percent in food and alcoholic beverages that INDEC measured for the month of December, when general inflation reached 5.1 percent. “What we evaluate is that we have gone through an inflation of 6 percent,” said Savore and clarified that as a backup of the calculation “we have the invoices for the entire month,” which they obtain in purchases from the chain’s suppliers.
A source from the same entity in the Region agreed with that look. Although he indicated that here “you can reach 8 percent, according to some calculations.”
The panorama was seen since the middle of last month. According to the data that had been disseminated from that entity and businesses in the City, which was published by this newspaper, beer was up 10 percent, the same as the best-known brands of mineral water, soft drinks registered increases of the order of 8 percent. percent in a leading firm in the market and French fries reached 15.
The Fair Prices Program, which seeks to put a corset on inflation, has grocers with a claim for access to those lists. Following this weekend’s announcements, there was no change to that board. “Nothing changes us,” said the head of the Federation of Grocers and added that “the only thing we are going to try to do is what we have done up to now, which is to look at the list, look for companies to replace products and generate the competition that we generate until today”.
Report
In the middle of last month, a survey of the Free Consumers association was also known, which marked an increase of 2.27 percent in the basket, in the first fifteen days of January.
Food merchants consulted by this newspaper pointed out that, despite different agreements, prices “do not stop.”
no brake
While the storekeepers detected in January a rise of the order of 30% in one kilo 000 flour, in stores in the City they offer it these days, a week after the closing of that month, at double the floor of 110 pesos that they had as reference.
