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Friday, April 21, 2006
Canary Islands Most Expensive for Grocery Shopping
All the local press led with the story today that the most expensive cities in Spain for the typical grocery shopping basket, are in the Canary Islands. Well, hey, we lead in something and the saving grace for us here in Tenerife is that Gran Canaria has prices notably higher than ours even.
Both Canary Islands capitals, Santa Cruz in Tenerife and Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, have amongst the most expensive prices in the country, according to figures released by the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) yesterday.
The OCU study analysed 86,000 prices in 789 establishments (supermarkets, hypermarkets, discount stores and 9 online stores) in 53 Spanish cities.
Two types of basket were analysed; one with branded goods, the other economy brands.
The Canary Islands headed the price charts in both kinds of basket. In Gran Canaria, the branded goods cost 10% more than in the lowest priced city in Spain, while in Tenerife the cost was 7% higher. Canary Island consumers pay the highest prices in the country for meat, fish, fruit and packaged foods, while household cleaning products are the cheapest.
However, it is in the discount basket where there is a wider margin. In Gran Canaria, consumers pay 39% more than the people in the cheapest city, Ciudad Real, while the shopper in Tenerife pays 33%, almost a third more. In Santa Cruz, the brand name basket was cheapest in Alcampo, whilst it was most expensive in El Corte Inglés.
The OCU had no doubts why the Canary Islands featured at the top of these lists: lack of competition and the lack of deep discounts stores which are excluded from the region by legal restrictions, imposed by the Canary Islands government. The OCU spokesman says that the traditional stores have nothing to fear from the discount houses, "if they get their finger out", as "they have other weapons and attractions with which to fight."
Diario de Avisos, El Dia, Canarias7, CanariasAhora, La Opinion and ABC
2 Comments:
Pamela wrote (on
April 22, 2006)
Yes, that is an interesting point and, actually, something I couldn't understand about the findings of the research, because the Canary Islands do grow an lot of fruit, so I could not see why the prices here for fruit would be the highest in the country.
I am sure there will be political parties of various flavours who will "denonce" this expensive situation in the Canary Islands. Nevertheless, one should not forget that the cost of living is generally kept down here because we do not have much need for heating as they do in other regions of Spain.
Fortunately, living in this valley, where a lot of it is grown, my own shopping basket cost is kept down because I am given things by local growers, or just pick what is growing wild.
I live in a very expensive area too; since so much produce is grown locally, though, we have decent prices on that at least.