According to Indec, Sales in supermarkets fell 7.6% year -on -year In November, but 1.8% grew Regarding the previous month. Supermarkets bet on a stable improvement in consumption After the first quarter. Meanwhile, for the decline of inflation some suppliers They already send lists with quarterly updates and aspire to semiannual increases.
It was not a good year for the great centers of mass consumption. From November 2023, barely confirmed the assumption of President Javier Milei, until March 2024, supermarket sources say that The update of the price lists was frequent and with little sustainable values Faced with the deterioration that wages had in the first quarter.
According to Supermercadistas, prices stabilized but consumption “did not fall so much or in 2001”
However, from April The consumer price index (CPI) was located again in the area of a digit, and food values They began to experience some stabilizationalthough starting from a high base, product of the shaking of the previous three months.
Thus, INDEC marked that in 2024 The goods rose 96%while services They did a 189%and the government boasts of having reduced poverty (as long as it compares income against food rise).
All this was not enough to reverse a situation that already in January last year was challenging: by case, an important food businessman explains that closed 2024 with a drop of almost 10%, in terms of volume. “The second semester was recovery, but we failed to recover the abrupt fall between March and May,” says the source.
Another reference in the sector, in this case of one of the largest supermarket chains, was decisive in its diagnosis: “Consumption did not fall so much or in 2001”
However, it seeks to kill such a comparison warning that in 2023 consumption “was inflated with Anabolic” for developing during the electoral campaign.
According to the source, From September onwards, the deterioration of available income was felt stronglybecause of the increase in services. “Other chains felt it before, we, for the public we handle, notice it more pronounced in the middle of the year,” he explains.
According to a consultant’s report Empiriaafter the drop recorded in September, the available income indicator grows again just 1% real And it was 83.2 points, that is 11% above the floor registered in April 2024, but still 16.8% below the level of November 2023.
2025: moderate recovery, but food auction every three or six months
This year is still presented as an unknown. The exchange delay, although a priori seems distant in the analysis, marks a factor that was not mentioned so far: More and more Argentines travel abroadwhich will complicate, according to its reasoning, the comparison against 2024.
Anyway, it is true that The price of food moves discreetly between one month and another. The need to sell after the fall in consumption generates greater competition, while imported products play their role in moderation of the price rise.
In that sense, the look is optimistic. Supermarkets are committed to a inflation around 2% – or even drilles that floor- consolidates a phenomenon that is gradually spread: The quarterly update of price lists. Even in some purchase centers they aspire that they can rise semiannually.
“If inflation is low, it makes no sense to increase prices in small percentages, a rise is more convenient every three months,” explains one of the sources consulted.
Anyway, supermarkets continue with A moderate consumption level By a consumer “demanding”, Although with good predisposition to promotional opportunities. Thus, the opportunity to see consumption levels “further assets“It could come to specify”After the first quarter “to find in the second half of the year “a stabilized panorama that allows to think some growth,” according to a source.
In warehouses they hope to see results in March
In closeness shops the situation is similar. Fernando Savare, President of the PBA Warehouse Federation, the increases registered in early 2024 They were not validated by consumersbut they placed until reaching October, month where it registered some price casualties.
“Last year we paid a kilo of sugar at $ 1,400, today it costs us $ 900. There are a lot of products where the same thing happens; Cookies, noodles, grass, toilet paper, had hit an important getaway and went back down. Not so with the oil, which inexplicably increased between 7% and 9%. ”, Exemplifies Savore.
“The perspective is not bad, we even consider that If low inflation we can apply some discountsbut the reality is that January and February are months in which the sale falls. So I think We will find reality in March”, Concludes the merchant.
Source: Ambito
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