Barbecue leaves the menu in Argentina as inflation approaches 200%

Argentine retiree Susana Barrio says she no longer invites her friends for the traditional asado, which has long been a key part of social life in the South American agricultural country. Rapidly rising prices for meat and vegetables make it difficult to purchase meals.

Inflation in the country likely exceeded 200% last year, one of the highest levels in the world. Food prices have risen particularly quickly, hitting people’s wallets as wages and pensions have not kept pace.

“We had to eliminate the things that made life a little brighter,” Barrio, 79, said. “The joy I had of inviting my friends to a barbecue, which is typical here, is now impossible.”

Inflation was likely around 28% in December, with food prices rising again after a sharp devaluation of the peso, a Reuters poll of analysts showed. The official data will be published this Thursday.

While Argentina has suffered from high inflation for years, the rate of price increases is now at its highest level since the early 1990s, when the country was emerging from a period of hyperinflation.

“You completely lose track of prices,” said Guillermo Cabral, a 60-year-old butcher shop owner in Buenos Aires, who remembers once accidentally telling a customer that the price of a piece of meat was 35,000 pesos ($43). ) instead of 15,000 pesos.

“The customer still withdrew the money to pay for it.”

President Javier Milei, a outsider This politician who came to power thanks to voters’ anger at the deterioration of the economic situation seeks to resort to severe austerity measures to lower inflation, reduce a deep budget deficit and replenish the government’s coffers.

But Milei, in power for a month, warned that it would take time and that things could get worse before they get better. Many Argentines are tightening their belts even more and two-fifths of them already live in poverty.

“Nothing is cheap,” said Graciela Bravo, a 65-year-old retiree, who said she now carefully counts the number of potatoes she buys.

“Before, I bought by the kilo, now I have to buy three or four potatoes so they don’t spoil.”

Alejandro Grossi, a 49-year-old lawyer, said he was tired of getting used to rising prices after years of inflation.

“I buy fewer things than I would like, we adapt,” he says. “It’s as if we’re used to it, here it’s already something very natural: inflation and price variations.”