Arraial Salto: Inflation makes the main foods of the Festa Junina more expensive

A survey carried out by the Economic Research Institute Foundation (Fipe), at the request of the CNN Brasil Business , shows that the Festas Juninas will also be impacted by inflation. The prices of some of the main foods consumed in the period rose, on average, 15.29%.

Among the 10 foods analyzed by the research, seven of them had an increase of more than 10%, in 12 months. The scope of the sample concerns the city of São Paulo.

The ranking of foods is formed by condensed milk, grated coconut, wheat flour, cornmeal, corn, apple, pumpkin, cassava, brandy and wine.

Corn and cornmeal lead the highs, the first with a variation of 41.88%, while the second with 41.58%.

Then there is pumpkin with 34.77%, wheat flour (20.75%), cassava (18.33%) and apple (17.13%). The smallest adjustments were for brandy (11.36%), condensed milk (7.13%), grated coconut (1.60%) and wine (0.90%).

The last IPCA (Extended Consumer Price Index) for April, which slowed to 1.06% compared to the previous month. However, this was the highest result for the month of April since 1996 (1.26%). In March, the index had stood at 1.62%.

The main impacts came from food and beverages and transport. Together, the two groups contributed around 80% of the IPCA for the month.

Guilherme Moreira, economist and coordinator of the Consumer Price Index (IPC), at Fipe, explains that many of the foods analyzed had high prices for their inputs this year.

“When we consider corn and wheat as important inputs that are present in several items consumed in this period, they had several increases due to the rise in global commodities, a phenomenon that has been going on since last year and continued throughout 2021”.

In addition, the economist cites the war in Ukraine as a factor that also made prices higher, since production costs increased due to the crisis in the supply of fertilizers, widely used by Brazilian agribusiness.

Brazil imports more than 80% of the fertilizers needed to maintain soil quality. In two months of conflict in Eastern Europe, phosphorus and potassium had readjusted around 18% to 20%.

Moreira also highlights the rise in fuel prices in June’s food inflation.

According to him, the increase in prices that was already being caused by the other factors mentioned “together with the readjustments that occurred in the price of diesel caused foodstuffs to rise a lot and “should remain throughout the year”.