Households cut food budget due to school opening costs

MANILA, Philippines - Households are currently spending less on fresh food items due to their increased outlay for school opening needs.

According to the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agriculture Statistics (BAS), sluggish trading of fresh food items continued to prevail in the metropolis as consumers spent more for school opening needs.

The abundant supply of eggplant, string beans and bitter gourd from major sources resulted in price cuts at wholesale outlets, the BAS noted.

Prices were reduced by 12.5 percent for ampalaya up to 16.65 percent for string beans and eggplant compared to the previous week’s quotations.

Similar price trend was noted at retail markets.

Lowland grown vegetables were priced P10 per kilogram lower than last week’s prevailing prices.

At the fishery counters, volume of milkfish (bangus) and tilapia traded at Metro markets dropped significantly as consumers refrained from buying them due to the “fish kill” scare.

This resulted in remarkable price reductions over the past few weeks. The wholesale prevailing price of P65 per kilogram of bangus dropped to P40.

Similar price movement was noted at retail trading.

To avoid further losses, most retailers from the markets monitored, have temporarily stopped selling bangus.

Meanwhile, the BAS observed that other indicator marine species maintained their price levels with the exception of caesio (dalagang bukid) which was quoted P10 per kilogram.

Prices of rice, bottled cooking oil, meat products and chicken appear stable.

With the stocks of sugar reportedly high coupled with the slowing down in demand, prices at wholesale and retail markets have continuously gone down since the onset of June.

From P56 per kilogram of refined sugar, the price has been reduced to P48, while the brown type quoted at P50 then, now sells at P46.

However, washed sugar was tagged P50 per kilogram or higher by P2 from the price of P48 of white sugar.

Retailers cited that they still have in their shelves the stocks which they purchased at higher cost since washed sugar were not as salable as the refined and brown types.

Supply of locally grown fruits continued to fill fruit stands at affordable prices.