Why is grated cheese cheap?
Yes, it is “cheap”. Many quotation marks would be missing because $560 for an envelope of grated cheese in a country where the RIPTE salary (Average Taxable Remuneration for Stable Workers) is $155,611.28 and the minimum is just over 51 thousand is outrageous for the pockets, but compared to inflation they fell short.
It is that according to the inflation calculator of checked, the grated cheese should cost $610.39. Even more crazy would be this simple dressing for traditional pasta.
Grated cheese with Macri was like buying a Hilux
A survey carried out by Mariano M. Fernández for minutouno.com He explained that in 2015, at the end of the government of Cristina Kirchner, grated cheese cost $54.55.
In April 2019, the same 190 gram pack was $159.45. 290% more expensive in three years and four months, which is equivalent to 7.25% per month. Salaries never even touched that percentage.
If we take purchasing power as a parameter, the “grated cheese index” indicates that with the average salary of 2015 ($ 15.385,50) sand they could buy 282 envelopes while in 2019 with the $35,495 that now earn the average of Argentine workers in gross -according to the National University of Avellaneda- are bought 222. In less than four years, 60 packages less.
CHEESE SAVINGS PLAN
A meme was circulating on the internet in which they indicate that un kilo of grated cheese is more expensive than one of the best-selling trucks in the struggling auto market. It is real. It is even cheaper to buy a better vehicle per kilo than the one in the image circulating on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp groups.
Meme
The grated cheese meme circulating on social media
A Toyota Hilux doble cabina 4×4 top of the range weighs 2,910 kilos and costs $1,959,100 -although if you are lucky enough to go with hard cash they will give you a juicy bonus- which is equivalent to $673 per kilo. The kilo of grated cheese that she took minutouno.com of model to compare is $839.21.
Why is grated cheese so expensive?
In this regard, Jorge García, owner of the San Gotardo factory, explained that grated cheese has become a luxury in principle due to the price of milk and the time it takes to make it, but the fundamental factor has to do with the excessive interest rates applied by Mauricio Macri’s government to support the dollar.
“With 1,000 liters of milk, 85 kilos of Sardinian or Reggianito cheese are produced, which is the one used for grating. Once prepared, it must be parked for seven months.” explains to minutouno.com.
liter of milk
We have lost a lot of money in that time. We offset something with exports, but domestic consumption plummeted. And our industry is not like others that can keep the stock. The dairy farmer cannot throw away the milk. There were dairy farms that closed and sent the cows to the slaughterhouse. Before we compensated our expenses with credits, but now the interest rates are very high and we cannot finance ourselves. That is why we have no choice but to sell a kilo of cheese at these prices”, he explained.
García who sells to the public in his factory in Trenque and also owns a store in San Carlos de Bariloche. “One lives from this and has been dedicated to this for many years, but it is better to put the money to work in the bank than to produce”, he concludes.