Not only buckwheat… The grocery «Survival kit» has risen in price by 25 over the year%

In the spring of 2022, when anxious expectations about the inevitable inflation in Russian society were just beginning to grow, the experts of the ProductMedia channel calculated how much the so-called «survival kit» would cost. Moreover, for calculations, they took the cheapest positions in food categories on the example of a network of budget supermarkets «Pyaterochka». Then everything that is shown in this photo could be bought for 85 rubles. And in August 2023, the channel's experts returned to the same calculations and found out that the survival kit had risen significantly in price — now they would have to pay 105-110 rubles for it.

This set includes products that can make up the minimum daily diet of the average Russian:

— processed cheese product,

— mayonnaise sauce,

— tea,

— sausages,

— bread,

— instant noodles.

Attention is drawn to the fact that there is no buckwheat in this package, the cost of which is reputed to be the main indicator of stability in Of Russia. According to publicist Pavel Pryanikov, you can not conduct any opinion polls, but you can just look only at this indicator (with all crises, Russians are running to buy buckwheat, and the price for it is growing).

But this product, alas, is getting more expensive, as is the whole «set»: «Prices for buckwheat by the end of 2023 may increase by 1.5 times, said Alexey Plugov, general director of the expert-analytical center for agribusiness „AB-Center“.

«This year, the prices of buckwheat in Russia may grow, warned former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Leonid Kholod: — She (buckwheat) carries all the hardships of the mood of the population. As soon as the population begins to think about something anxiously, so instantly there is a need to go and buy buckwheat for some reason.»

In July of this year, the prices of buckwheat for the first time in more than a year (since May 2022) began to rise again (by 0,3% per week).

In connection with the situation of a general rise in price, economist Dmitry Prokofiev asked readers of his channel to write to him about what products are indicators of inflation for them? Or — even more broadly — by what signs do they determine that prices are rising or remain stable?

For someone gasoline, for someone chicken, and for someone gaskets

As a result, an interesting selection of facts about the price increase turned out, which allow us to draw a number of conclusions:

»… For me, the inflation indicators are gasoline (92nd in Moscow.about 51.19 rubles Oil highway — something beyond).

The price of chicken.

The price of buckwheat — we eat it daily.

The price of cheese.

The price of fish (we are talking about pollock fillets and veal from frozen raw materials, Crossroads, MO — 399 ₽, is also prohibitive).»

»… I determine inflation by the products I eat most often — cottage cheese and chicken breast.

Two years ago, a breast could be bought at 180- for a stock, of course, but it was almost always possible to find it. Without a share of 200. Now I buy 350-400»

»… For me, the indicators are tea, coffee, milk, cottage cheese and butter.

In 2015, butter of Auchan's own brand cost 46 rubles, and now 135.

A pack of cottage cheese 5% of the Kozelsky plant cost 56 rubles, now 115.

Black Kuban tea 200 grams cost 170 rubles in 2015, now about 300.»

»… Sugar and bread, besides buckwheat.»

»…Sugar, bread, sunflower oil

Sugar jumps because it is also a strategic reserve, for example, for jam. Or for something else :) Tested by generations.

Bread — my mother says that under the Soviet regime, they tried to make decent quality bread, subsidized the price. The bread was cheap and delicious. And now cheap bread is getting worse and worse, and delicious, high-quality bread is getting more expensive.»

»…Bananas»

»…I count inflation on beer, sausage, milk and bread»

»… The cost of a bottle of 9L Kalinov Spring, 5-7 years cost min 75 rubles, now min 129 rubles. Everything is laid down in the price, mineral resources — water, import — reform, the government's wishes — marking is an honest sign.»

»… Right now (not in May–June, but at the end of July) I noticed a sharp, somewhere one and a half times (in fact, by tens of%%, but it seems that «one and a half times») taxi prices have risen (Ya. taxi).

For me, a good example of impoverishment is the price of buns in bakeries… It seems that the growth is not very large, but every time the price rises «by at least 10%». Plus, the assortment is changing, cookies in boxes have disappeared»

»…Dairy products: (milk, cheese especially, cottage cheese, yoghurts, butter). Pasta, cereals (it's probably more about rice, buckwheat is hard to eat morally after the 90s, as well as potatoes by the way).

Meat — chicken or high-quality semi-finished products, and not nuggets that cost almost the same every year, but certain brands have to be abandoned in principle. Fruits (bananas, oranges — the prices finally flew into space for them), vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, garlic).

Tea bags or without — within the framework of one brand, you can immediately see whether you started to engage in shrinkflation or rolled into the baseboard or raised prices»

»… for me, the most indicative indicator of inflation is the prices of feminine hygiene items.»

»…a clear sign of an increase in food prices is the rise in coffee prices. It does not grow in Russia, it is brought from abroad, and from afar, it completely depends on the dollar exchange rate. I buy coffee from our Russian roasters, i.e. they bring green unroasted coffee and roast it here. So they have never hidden that the price of coffee directly depends on the dollar exchange rate»

»…To understand the growth of prices and inflation, I always look at the cost of THAT car (not at the dealer, now there are plenty of quality services with original s/ h), protein (isolate, sports pit, quality in the first place, brands are not top, there is competition even among our manufacturers), BCAA (amino acids), beef (tenderloin, grass-fed, i.e. regular), cottage cheese. In fact, this set has a good production cut.

I don't really look at services, so the assessment is not quite adequate, but as an indicator it is not bad. I don't think % growth is accurate, but it is many times higher than official inflation, of course.»

Many things have not just risen in price, but also deteriorated to inedible

In addition, some commentators not only named their «inflation indicators», but also accompanied them with a story about how they are trying to cope with rising prices:

»… What I buy constantly and what I immediately feel the price change for: bread (46 rubles for 700 grams, this is the only bread in our area that looks like bread, not chewing gum), milk (170 rubles for 2 liters, if in the store), butter (350 rubles for 400 grams. if you get to the action, 430-450 if without it, it's a pity to spend on baking, but I don't want margarine), sunflower (550-590 rubles for 5 liters), sugar (here buckwheat is resting, 5 kilos for 306 rubles — and my eyes are getting wider than I could ever imagine, pasta like feathers or spirals (about 70 rubles for 400 gr), meat (but we rarely take it, because it is very wholesale, we have a freezer, so the fluctuations are not so strongly felt. Well, eggs, but that's if we discard the holiday periods (now 85-90 rubles for a dozen).

We take a lot of this on weekends at the bazaar, on average we leave 3-4 thousand rubles there every week. A family of three adult working people…»

»…We have buckwheat and toilet paper (all over the world) — indeed, some goods with existential meanings that are completely incomprehensible to me.

No one in the family (except the dog, who buys the cheapest rice — 2-3 kg per year) likes and does not eat buckwheat (unlike multifunctional rice (both in soup, and in pilaf, and porridge, and side dish, and risotto, and sweet pudding).

Toilet paper is easily replaced with paper towels (these two identical products of different cuts become more expensive in turn) or baby wet wipes (which are often very cheap and economical).

In any case, in my family, these goods and their prices have little effect on the budget. As, for example, the rise in price of table salt (we recall the song «Rumors» by Vladimir Vysotsky): when spending 5 kg per year on a family (taking into account pickling cucumbers and mushrooms with 20-liter barrels), I don't care even if the price rises at times: 50 or 500 rubles a year will not undermine the family budget.

The rise in price of daily and not harvested for the future (bread and bakery products, the quality of which is falling sharply, and the price is rising) significantly affects the budget. Moreover, the price is not growing so noticeably directly, but because in search of quality, you have to buy in more expensive bakeries. Confectionery (flour: cakes, cupcakes, cookies) not only rose in price, but also deteriorated to inedible, as well as cheeses. We have not been buying cheese for a couple of years: even expensive is not comparable in quality with ordinary European, so we decided not to experiment anymore, it's easier to occasionally bring or order «from there».

The reduction of the assortment in all food items is very noticeable: meat used to be in rows, now there are two showcases in the same supermarket, seafood was both by weight and different packaging, now 1-2 items in one version. There are more «semi-finished products» — chopped-chopped in marinade, sauces, etc., which obviously hides a decrease in quality and masks «freshness», creating the illusion of easier cooking and adds price. The rise in price of seasonal vegetables shows that absolutely everything is getting more expensive.

I rejoice in the ability to bake and generally cook «from an axe», but the impoverishment of the diet is noticeable. Our own forest preparations help out a lot, which we happily exchange with friends for country vegetables. Barter instead of commodity-money…

I will add: for the last 2 years, food inflation has been most evident to me in a showcase with olive oil: the price of a liter of super-quality oil (rarely brought in small batches) is often lower than for a half-liter bottle of ordinary, but newly imported …»

An individual's sense of the inflation rate is based on a personal consumer basket

Meanwhile, sociologists have long paid attention to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and take it into account in their research. In this regard, Prokofiev cites a remarkable comment by the former (in 2018-2022) head of Rosstat Pavel Malkov, who in 2021 spoke about the real rise in price and its feeling in society as follows:

«The CPI is probably the most discussed indicator of Rosstat, since we all deal with prices absolutely everywhere every day. The individual feeling (of the inflation rate) is based on the personal consumer basket and the change in prices of goods that a particular household buys. This is a psychological factor — we focus on the goods that have risen in price the most, and automatically extend this feeling [of inflation] to all other goods: for example, we see how buckwheat has risen in price, and we believe that everything else has also risen in price.

Rosstat publishes not only the general CPI, but also data on each item included in it — you can collect your own basket and see the same growth that we record psychologically. Rosstat collects monthly information on 556 types of goods and services in 282 cities. We observe more than 82,000 retail outlets, the set of goods and services is constantly being adjusted in accordance with the updating of the assortment and consumer preferences. Each item has its own weight in the consumer basket, the composition and weights of which are formed on the basis of a separate large study. We can say that the CPI is not only one of the most sensitive indicators, but also one of the most elaborated in terms of methodology and mathematics…»