Price Hike Effect: What are the options for Indian consumers when prices of cereals, oil, vegetables and spices are rising sharply? Either they avoid buying the product or buy smaller pack sizes. Even now Indians are doing the same and have started buying small packs of food products so that their needs are fulfilled and the burden on the pocket is also reduced. However, it is different that they are available in lesser quantity than before. After a sharp jump in the price of every item used in the kitchen, people have again started buying small pouches or packs instead of big boxes. It includes everything from biscuits to tomato sauce, ginger paste and spices.
Buying a packet of puree instead of tomatoes
For the last few months, people’s kitchen budget has deteriorated. This has brought a change in the buying habits of the people. Now, instead of buying fresh and expensive tomatoes at Rs 100 a kg, they buy ready-made tomato puree from the market, which costs Rs 25 for 200 grams. Similarly, since the price of ginger has skyrocketed, instead of buying ginger from the vegetable vendor, people buy a packet of ready-made ginger paste. Since the price of cumin is not cheap in this inflation, he buys 7 grams of cumin powder. Fed up with rising prices of kitchen items, a woman said she has stopped using tomatoes and has started using ready-made purees.
Inflation has increased since the onset of monsoon
India has witnessed a steep rise in the prices of fruits, vegetables and spices since the onset of monsoon. The price of tomato is around Rs 100 per kg and in posh areas of Bengaluru the price has reached up to Rs 120. A month ago, the price of cumin powder was Rs 550 per kg, which has increased to Rs 800. Similarly, the prices of ginger are also making new records. Janice Lee, a Chinese company that has been selling tomato puree for the past eight decades, said demand for their product has increased dramatically in recent months. An 800 gram pack of Tomato Puree costs just Rs.80 and buying this pack is much cheaper than buying fresh tomatoes from the market. The company said that they do not need to increase prices now as they buy the entire year’s stock in winters when tomato prices are at their lowest.
Till now the cost of a pouch of cumin powder used to be five rupees, in which 9 grams of powder was available. But now it has been reduced by two grams, so customers will get only 7 grams of powder. Bulk buying on a large scale seems to be completely closed. Similarly, in ginger also people have started buying readymade paste because the price of ginger is not cheap in the market.
