Topics of Interest At prices of infarction (+ photos) Go to the entry

The memes spread on the Facebook social network have not forgiven the high prices at which cheese is sold today, and before the image of a mouse suffering from a heart attack on a counter because of the expensive product, you can only wonder if it was imported from Quesolandia itself.

Last year, for example, a Mozarella cheese cost 168 pesos in the wholesale market and Commerce sold it for 210, but after the increase in the price of milk collection from 7.50 to 20 pesos, the industry raised its price to 399 pesos. and Commerce to 500, and thus the different dairy lines rose successively.

Questioned about the matter together with a group of residents of the Camilo Cienfuegos district of Bayames, Norma Fernández Alfonso, expressed:

“First the melted cheese was at 15 pesos per kilogram, then at 30, and one saw it a little expensive but it had better quality; then to 140 and currently to 300. It seems to me that they got a bit out of hand and that it should be reviewed, because they say to go up to and they go up to; there is no middle ground.

“You don't have to be an analyst to know that they are exorbitant prices and that a worker who lives off his salary cannot afford to purchase that product.

"If prices continue to rise, where are we going to stop? Because it's not just cheese, it's everything, clothing, footwear..."

“With the previous price, this cheese would no longer be here, it would have “flown” in two hours, says Julio César Rodríguez Tamayo, dependent on the ideal market La Granada, in Bayamo.

“The delay was to cut and weigh, and that was rationed to two kilograms per person. Today they buy half a pound, one; others the kilogram. It sells, but more slowly, that's why there is permanence of the product”, he affirms.

Vicente Díaz Sosa, second administrator of the Jesús Menéndez ideal market, states that the price increase has not affected them: “The cheese is sold. This week I have searched for 300 kilograms and everything has come out. It takes about four days, but it comes out; what does exist is the opinion among the population that the amount is high”.

Until the ideal market La Cabalgata, Eva Hilda Rodríguez Palomino came to weigh the offers. Seeing the cheese, she asks if she intends to buy: “I'm retired with a pension of 1,528 pesos, I can't afford that luxury. The price is hot, not all of us can reach it. Between food and medicine everything goes away for me”.

With a pension similar to that of Eva Hilda, confirms the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in Granma, there are around 10,000 pensioners; and with a pension lower than this, that is, in the order of 1,070 pesos, almost 16,000 people from Granma who previously could acquire this offer at a more affordable value.

La Demajagua provides answers to some extent to Nuris Hidalgo González, a resident of Bueycito, who, while consuming four scoops of ice cream dipped in her own broth in Las Torres, asked herself several questions, finally economical.

“Who puts the price on this? Hey, you should see the cost sheet, the amount it costs to produce it, the number of people bumping into each other; maybe we have to get people out of the way, be more efficient, because raw materials cannot be dispensed with, but something happens with this cost”.

THE INDUSTRY HAS THE WORD

The payment of 20 pesos per liter of milk collected to the farmer and other dividends for the transport, the cooling to guarantee the conservation and quality of the same, without any subsidy from the State, shot up the prices of dairy products throughout and width of the country, in Granma with an incidence in 85 percent of its productions.

Yoandris Espinosa Infante, financial accounting director at the Granlac Dairy Products Company, in Granma, explains that the formation of prices is done taking into account the expenses incurred during the production process of the different lines and the costs of raw materials. , many of which significantly increased their value on the international market (a ton of refined sugar rose from 7,817 dollars to 10,440 dollars) and, however, prices have not been in that same proportion.

“To produce a kilogram of cheese we use 10 to 13 liters of milk. You multiply that by 20 pesos and the least a kilogram should cost is between 200 and 260 pesos”, explains Olga María Aguilera Aguilera, Head of the planning, price and statistics group of this financial accounting department.

But making a cheese is not a matter of sewing and singing, as we say in popular jargon. It involves about twenty operators who work indistinctly in its reception, manufacturing, maturation, packaging and dispatch; It also requires consumption of fuel, electricity and water, which must be included in that cost sheet.

“Due to Finance and pricing regulations, we have established that we can only have up to an eight percent profit margin of the total cost, we cannot afford to lower that regulation, because many of our products, including those aimed at basic basket, were centralized by the Ministry of Finance and Prices, and the price is much lower than the cost, which causes losses to the company that already drags 80 million pesos”, explains Aguilera Aguilera.

Mercedes Pérez Díaz, main specialist of Price Formation in Granma, attests that the prices of the dairy industry were established after analysis with the Provincial Directorate of Finance and Prices, after reviewing its cost sheet and according to legal guidelines, taking into account Take into account that the wholesale price does not exceed the retail price, and discounting the commercial margins and sales taxes.

Graciela María Carrazana Urquiza, economic director of the Commerce Business Group, emphasizes that retail prices are a continuation of wholesale prices.

“Based on the sale price, I establish the retail price, applying 20 percent to that sale price, of which 10 percent goes to the State budget and the other ten is the profit margin to cover maintenance costs. transportation, wages of workers, electricity.

“I have no way to modify prices. If the industry sells at a price, I have to comply with my commercial margin”, Carrazana Urquiza coins.

Pérez Díaz clarifies that although Resolution 311 establishes at least a ten percent profit margin for these companies, in the case of dairy it has applied an 8.2, the minimum.

VALUATIONS

On the one hand, the company's belt is tightened; on the other, Commerce enjoys a higher profit margin than those who produce; and in the midst of that crossroads of interests, the people face such an avalanche of numbers.

The decentralization of prices opens the power to each company to set its own, some with the knowledge to create a cost sheet; others do it on the sly, and bad accounts are paid by people in the state and private sectors, with arbitrary prices. Therefore, training is required in order to take advantage of the powers given today to municipal governments and the business sector with more autonomy, and seek greater guidance from the global bodies of the economy.

There are many edges associated with the problem of prices in the dairy industry. What else could make a difference? Put more care in the attention to the reproductive mass; a more cohesive work by all the actors that must influence so that what is established in terms of contracts and delivery to the industry is complied with; establish sliding and non-fixed prices to stimulate milk production, perhaps shorten the chain of workers involved in manufacturing, allocate raw materials to produce the most economically feasible variety for the people.

The first month of the new year is coming to an end and we are once again talking about closing ranks at the extremely high prices that today permeate the entire society.