Intensive preparations are made for the Easter meal, and the markets and shops are full from the early hours of the morning. However, the amount of food purchased differs from previous years.
The products in Romanians’ shopping baskets are fewer and fewer and in much smaller quantities.
Price increases make Romanians to be more frugal. Instead of the whole lamb, people limit themselves to only 1 kilogram or two, of appetite. Cozonac, drob or drum are sold per hundred grams.
For example, during this period, a whole cake ends up costing 85 lei, and because of the high price, Romanians prefer to buy just one piece, at a much lower price.
“Since I talked to friends, neighbors… they all said that they don’t take whole lamb. I used to take too, now only 2 legs”, says a Romanian.
“I bought half a lamb, almost 170 lei,” says another Romanian.
And the change in the way of shopping has led stores to adapt and change their strategy. In the markets, drob, cozonac or sausages are sold by the hundred grams.
In supermarkets, the situation is similar. The pasca, for example, is getting smaller and smaller, and the drob is already cut and can be bought by the piece.
We buy less because prices have gone up. This year, lamb costs us approximately 50 lei per kilogram. For the same price, we also buy a kilogram of meat. The cozonac, the star of the festive tables, costs 85 lei on average.
“The decrease in purchasing power, against the backdrop of inflation, is felt more and more in store sales. The solution to stimulate consumption again is to take measures to reduce the VAT on basic foodstuffs and reduce the price thresholds for energy and gas”, says Adrian Negrescu, analyst.
For the third consecutive month, Romania has the highest inflation rate in the European Union.
