The Consumer Basket – Cheaper Eggs, Cheese, Rice, and Flour

A stabilisation in the prices of the “small consumer basket” on a month-by-month basis has been recorded, according to data from the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB).

There has been a decline in the prices of some staple goods – eggs, cheese, rice, and flour – as well as a more pronounced decrease in the prices of seasonal produce such as cucumbers, potatoes, and tomatoes.

Prices in small retail outlets are lower compared to those in large supermarket chains, while wholesale and retail prices show significant discrepancies.

The mark-up on products ranges from 19% to 70%.

There are also substantial variations in the prices of key goods between different regions.

“The most concerning issue is the large gap between wholesale and retail prices. What we did was compare our retail price data – collected from 81 municipalities in over 600 retail outlets – with the wholesale prices published by the State Commission on Commodity Exchanges and Wholesale Markets. For the same product, wholesale and retail prices differ by between 30% and 70%. There is also a marked difference between prices in small and large retail outlets. Contrary to our expectations, it is in fact the small retailers who maintain lower prices than the large ones,” said Lyuboslav Kostov, Chief Economist at CITUB.