Russian citizens are massively switching to a saving mode, cutting expenses on food due to inflation, which, according to consumers, far exceeds the official figures of Rosstat.
The food expenditure index, which Sberbank compiles (https://sberindex.ru/ru/dashboards/ver-izmenenie-trat-po-kategoriyam) based on transactions of tens of millions of its clients, has plummeted nearly 5 times from April to November. While in spring food expenses were growing by 15% year-on-year, now they are only up by 3.5%. And in real terms — accounting for inflation, which Rosstat estimates at 7% — spending on food has started to decline by 3.5% year-on-year.
Since the start of the war, prices in Russia have officially risen by about 40%. But in reality, “the average check of a weekly grocery shopping trip in recent years has at least doubled,” Bloomberg reported, quoting Denis, a 40-year-old resident of Tambov. According to him, his family has started buying fewer vegetables and fruits to make ends meet.
Although, according to Central Bank data, since the start of the war two-thirds of Russians have increased their real incomes, and one in five has seen their income grow by 1.5 times, the share of citizens who do not have enough money for food in surveys does not decrease — 31%, according to a Gallup study. Retail chains in response are forced to close supermarkets, symbols of the abundance of “fat years,” and switch to “stores for the poor” — hard discounters, whose share in the Russian market has exceeded 60%.
Russians are moving to a saving behavior model due to high food prices, notes Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline-Analytics. Labor market trends also have an impact, he points out: the number of part-time employees is growing, and bonus payments are being cut (The Moscow Times).