Consumer watchdog DECO says cost increased by €6 just in last week
Portugal’s rate of inflation may appear to be ‘in good order’ (hovering around 2%), but it is still putting pressure on the cost of living. Just in the last week, the price of what is dubbed “the basic food basket” by consumer watchdog DECO PROteste has increased by €6.
This basic food basket is now at the highest cost that DECO has seen in the last three years.
Known as the ‘cabaz alimentar’, this food basket is a collection of ‘essential items’ that families are seen to need for a normal week.
Just since January this year, its cost has increased by nearly €10.
Products that have increased the most in the last week are wholewheat cereals (up 26%), extra virgin olive oil (up 16%) and frankfurter sausages (up 18%* … writer’s note: why these sausages are considered essential by DECO is not explained).
According to DECO, in comparison to prices this time last year, the increase is €17.73 (or 7.77%) – and in January 2022, when DECO PROteste first started its monitoring of this food basket, the cost of it was €58.09 less, or in percentage terms 30.95% less.
In other words, the food basket is roaring ahead of inflation: people will be faced with spending more of their disposable income to get the same, or in removing certain essential items in order to keep at level pegging (this reporter’s suggestion would be to ditch the frankfurters, as these have zero nutritional value…)
Now, digging deeper into this story, one quickly realises that DECO comes up with its figures by purchasing (or totting up the cost) of the basic food basket from the online shops of ‘leading supermarkets’. An average price per product in all online shops included in DECO’s simulator is then obtained for the ‘cost of the food basket’ on a determined day/week.
This could be a clue: many shoppers may not identify with this story/these prices – and that is because leading supermarkets often have very different prices to smaller emporiums/outlets. To believe that a leading supermarket will be cheaper, for example, than a less common chain, is often incorrect – particularly when it comes to fruit and vegetables, which are invariably cheaper at farmer’s markets/ little greengrocers/ town markets.
WHAT IS THE BASIC FOOD BASKET?
This is made up of 63 products, as follows. It is not what every family eats/ consumes every week, so this too gives some hope in the ‘general gloom’ of this story that is otherwise being aired, and shared:
Meat
- Pork steak
- Chicken
- Pork loin
- Pork ribs
- Turkey steak
- Caserolle meat
- Turkey leg
Fish
- Cod fish
- Dourada
- Salmon
- White fish
- Mackerel
- Scabbard fish
- Sea bass
- Perch
Frozen foods
- Fish fingers
- Frozen peas
- Hake medallions
Fruit and Veg
- Oranges
- Gala apples
- Golden delicious apples
- Bananas
- Tomatos
- Cauliflower
- Lettuce
- Broccoli
- Carrots
- Red potatoes
- Courgette
- Garlic
- Onions
- Cabbage
Dairy
- Sliced processed cheese
- Sliced processed ‘Queijo flamengo’
- UHT medium fat milk
- Salted butter
- Pack of eight flavoured yoghurts
- Pack of four liquid yoghurts
- Eggs
Groceries
- Chick peas
- Tinned ‘butterbeans’
- Vegetable oi
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Rock salt
- Carolino rice
- Agulha rice
- Frankfurter sausages
- Tuna in olive oil
- Tuna in vegetable oil
- White sugar
- Pasta spirals
- Spaghetti
- Tomato pulp
- Self-raising flour
- Wholewheat cereals
- Bread rolls
- Sliced turkey slivers
- Sliced ham
- Maria biscuits
- Processed bread without crusts
- Ground coffee
source: DECO PROteste
