Food prices accelerated the rise in the fourth week of January

The increase in food prices accelerated again in the fourth week of January. The price variation in the last seven days had an increase of 3.5%, according to a report by the consulting firm LCG. This is an acceleration of 1.4 percentage points as recorded during the second week of the month. However, the consultancy highlights that “average inflation continued to decelerate and stood at 23.1% monthly average.” The percentage of products with weekly increases decreased, reaching 30%, seven percentage points less than the previous week,” LCG said. However, in the fourth week there was an acceleration in the rise. On the other hand, dairy products and eggs registered a weekly variation of 5.77%, followed by baked goods, cereals and pasta, with an increase of 5.25%. Beverages and infusions to be consumed at home registered an increase of 5.1%. Meanwhile, the price of meat increased by 2.66%, while oils increased by 1.8%. “Meats once again accelerated its weekly increase (2.7% s/s) and explains 28% of the total monthly variation,” the report highlighted. In LCG’s analysis of the cumulative of the last four weeks, oils increased by 33.5%, dairy products by another 27%, while vegetables increased by 25%. All in all, the final result of the month will be highly conditioned by what was the wholesale inflation in December, which marked a strong variation of 54% monthly, showing a significant acceleration compared to November (11%). In annual terms, it increased 276%, well above retail.

Original source in Spanish