There can only be one reason why onion prices rose more than 100 percent at both of our survey stores this month over last: the cold. The only other cold-weather vegetable hike in both stores was on limes which jumped between 20-30 percent since our December 21 survey.
Although January to January hikes on our market basket were up by 7.1 and 7.8 percent at Soriana and Wal-Mart respectively, both stores’ prices were up year on year on more than 70 percent of the surveyed items. The largest increases were on black beans, Dorito’s nacho chips, bacon, cat food, laundry detergent, napkins, tomatoes, potatoes, onions and oranges.
Decreases in prices year on year were most noticed in yogurt, tomato puree, beef, carrots, lettuce, limes and watermelon.
Look for 2X and 3X specials on a varity of products at both stores, where real savings can be had if you buy enough product to last for a month or so.
Watch out for small decreases in packaging amounts. Soriana is only selling Verde Valle Super Extra Rice in 900 gram packages, while at Wal-Mart the same brand is in 1 kilo bags. Doritos also dropped the size of a small bag of chips from 150 to 125 grams and the price still rose considerably over last year’s larger package.
Walmart again had the higher market basket price this month, although Soriana narrowed the gap considerably from last month.
The current peso/dollar exchange rate has the dollar down by 1.2 pesos since this time last year, and that has helped to keep any price hikes of U.S. made products down in general at local groceries, although recent fuel price hikes in Mexico are one of the primary inflationary factors in food prices.
Beer, liquor and tobacco prices have increased heavily in the last year and again recently due to tax increases.
Prices in our Inflation Check List went up on movie theater tickets, car washes, pizza, Big Macs, Starbuck’s coffee, water sold in 19-liter jugs (garafons) and cigarettes since last January.
Next month we’ll take a look at prices in the retail areas of Mercado Abastos to see how they fare with the big box grocers.
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