The lunch consumed by the majority of Caleños and Colombians outside their homes, the ‘rush’, it will remain expensive for several months.
The prices of potatoes, meat, rice, grains, fruits and other components of the popular dish will remain “through the roof” during the first half of this year.
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This pessimistic expectation is explained by the executive president of the National Federation of Merchants (Fenalco), in Valle del Cauca, Octavio Quintero, and the price and market information coordinator of the Valle del Cauca Supply Center (Cavasa), Oliver Medina.
Quintero and Medina stressed that the 70% of food that make up the family basket in Valle del Cauca are importedboth from other departments and from the rest of the country.
Medina said that, without a doubt, Caleños are consuming the highest family basket in recent years.
For his part, the union leader added that the fact that the prices of the family basket “they are going up like that it is worrying, but this is due to a structural and global issue. In the United States, inflation last year was 7%, somewhat the highest in 40 years; and that of Colombia (5.6%), was one of the highest in the last 25 years”.
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Commodities – Quintero continued – energy, coal, have risen. Difficulties in ports and the covid-19 pandemic have affected production. In the case of Colombia and, specifically Valle del Cauca, the national strike and the road blockades of April and May of last year continue to be reflected in prices.
Prices go down, but not enough
Medina emphasized that last week, some foods fell in price, but the increase in items in the family basket is so high that this decrease hardly tickles current prices.
Some of the foods that are on offer and that have dropped in price are chonto tomatoes, long onions, beets, corn, cabbage, lemon, lulo and passion fruit.
Even the potato, in its different presentations, dropped in price, but still is 250% above the normal value. In addition, in Cavasa they learned that the suppliers of this tuber for Valle del Cauca, which are located in the south of the country, plan to shift the potato supply to Ecuador and other departments of Colombia, where there is low potato production.
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Tomatoes fell from 3,600 to 2,600 per kilo, but the normal price is 1,400 pesos/klilo. It is 83% above. The bulk of the big-headed onion went from 140,000 to 120,000, but the normal price is 50,000 pesos. It’s still 140% above normal.
Cavasa’s spokesman commented that the national strike of 2021, the shortage of containers, the high cost of inputs, the devaluation of the peso and now the climatic problems affect the increase in the family basket.
Only long onions, beets and corn present prices when there is an abundant supply and they have favorable prices for the final consumer. In fruits, bananas, pear guava, mandarin lemon, coconut, curuba, strawberry and pineapple are at normal prices.
Caleños have to look for recipes with the cheapest food so that their pockets are not so affected by this shortage.
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