Inflation in January, which marked an increase of 6% and 98.8% year on year, according to INDEC, showed that some staple foods in the food basket experienced increases above the general price index level (CPI). These are not exactly too exotic products: for example, flour increased by 154.92%, sunflower oil by 116.47; milk, 146.95% and eggs, 164.74%, among other examples.
Among the foods that tend to have a greater presence in homes, the following stand out: French bread (flute type), which last month cost an average of $435.66 a kilo in Greater Buenos Aires; still yogurt which went from $125 to $155 in the same period; the pategras cheese, which accumulates an increase of 104.67%; stewed dry noodles, 158% increments; frozen hamburgers (135.97%) and dulce de leche, which, according to official data, increased by 164.74% in the last year.
These increases are also higher than the purchasing power of consumers, who – month after month – see their income worsening because it does not rise with the same intensity as inflation. In the last year, the real loss of salary was -on average- -3.7 points.
To trace another aspect of the inflationary impact, the consultancy Focus Market showed in a survey 10 products that in 2022, people could buy (and also have change) with a $1,000 bill and today that’s not enough anymore.
“If two years ago we bought a 3-liter sunflower oil or a 360-gram package of chicken batter with a banknote of the highest denomination, they gave us change of 160 and 500 dollars respectively. However, now to buy the same products we need to have, on top of the entire $1,000 bill, another $800 to buy the oil and another $200 to buy the package of chicken batter,” the report said.
In this regard, Damián Di Pace, director of the question, explains that “the loss of purchasing power of our currency It is accelerating and the nominal currency is at its lowest level since hyperinflation. He says. ”Increasingly, Argentines require more and more invoices to carry out the same shopping mission. In fact, a purchase that in 2022 was made with 1 $1,000 bill today requires 3 or 4 more bills.”
According to Di Pace, the macroeconomic fundamentals are different: “the current fiscal deficit is financed with the issuance of money and more placement of debt in pesos on the market. This is generating more uncertainty in the future and in the present. the banknote loses confidence by increasing its circulation speed. Argentines are shedding the peso at a faster rate despite the fact that the government aspires to them with more debt placement,” he says.
The high inflationary impact on pockets is driving, in turn, buyers towards channels where prices are cheaper. In this sense, every month it becomes more evident, according to private surveys, that consumption is growing within supermarkets, where fair prices are available, credit card promotions and loyalty card payments from the same chains, among other stimuli .
A recent report by the consulting firm Scentia, with data for the month of January, shows that theunlike cross-channel behavior, it continues to deepen. While supermarkets had a positive performance of 7.8%, in that month independent supermarkets or local businesses, which do not have access to these benefits and have less bargaining power with their suppliers, suffered a 9. 1%. Thus, the January balance, It was an average decline of 1.6% for the entire market compared to the same month in 2022.
As explained by Osvaldo del Rio, director of Scentia, the progression of a marked difference between the two channels- started in July 2022 and continues to this day”. And he adds: “The basis of comparison is part of the explanation for this trend, among other reasons. Unlike what was seen in 2022, there is no significant difference in what happened in AMBA compared to within the country, as the result of mass consumption sales is similar between the two regions.
Regarding the behavior of inflation in stores, according to the consultant, “the weighted average price maintains the acceleration seen in recent months, reaching 98.7% in this period. compared to the same month in 2022,” del Rio clarified.
Source: Clarin
