Food & Grocery Onions

My asawa wants to make hutspot (traditional Dutch dish, basically a stew of potatoes, carrots and onions) for me, so she bought some onions, but she said they were 500 peso per kilo.
500?!!!!!!!
Last retail price in The Netherlands is around 0.90 € per kilo, or 50 peso.
The current price here is 10 times that.
Apparently a Farmers Association has warned in October for shortages and advised the DA (department of Agriculture) to allow imports, but now accuses DA officers to play a hanky panky game with traders cornering the market (link).
Anyway, no more hutspot for me until this situation is sorted.

 

Cheaper in hypermarket 360/380 but still crazy prices.

 

Thank you Dave, excellent advice.
Fortunately the onion shortages are expected to last only a few months, so by the time any home grown crop would start having results, prices will hopefully be down to normal levels again. If not though, I will certainly have a go at growing my own (or rather: encourage the asawa to try).

 

How long before Manila becomes the most expensive city in the World? I saw ONE medium size carrot in a local supermarket for 59 pesos and an expensive half-rotted broccoli the size of a child's fist! It's a double whammy here with high prices and low quality!

Most of us can get through this - but the poor???

 

The poor eat kalamungay (grows for free on trees all over the place), not the expensive sh*t us expats prefer (although I do eat kalamungay soup occasionally).
But yes, even in normal times vegetables are low quality and high price here, especially the kinds that don't grow (as well) in the tropics.
On the other hand, all kinds of meat are cheaper than in Europe.

 

This shortage driving the prices is a result mainly of the government's refusal to import onions, at this 'off-season' time for local growing, as has previously been done. Must be another scam going on somewhere, lining someone's pockets. There seems to be little free market for imports here, even when there is demand, with the government controlling quotas for just about everything. Maybe there is some justification in that to safeguard the livelihoods of local growers, but not in this case. So, this particular input to local inflation is caused solely by mismanagement.

 

The poor might eat kalamungay but will they have sufficient nutrients from all the major food groups plus essential vitamins and minerals? A bit like "Let them eat cake" - and we know what happened to her!

Also, do we know what an overdose of kalamungay could lead to? So there is much missing from the poor's uni-diet and a danger in it too.

I would like to get an input from @DAVE1952 on meat prices in the UK, where he is currently, as I got the impression that meat is cheaper there - AND, very importantly, of far superior quality. My impression of locally produced meat here is: Chicken often okay, pork full of fat, beef unchewable (those with more teeth than I have might disagree).

 

Only today I was shopping and have taken a few notes on the prices here in UK, fortunately for us we have a budget brand supermarket named Aldi and a few of the more expensive ones, so I had gone to two different ones just to compare the prices, Aldi where you can get all the unbranded budget brands has upped their game a lot since the last time I was in UK with most being twice the size they once were when they had first opened here some 25yrs ago, now they have added many of the well known named brands.

Meat prices start at Pesos 220 per KG, this is for a low grade minced beef containing 20% fat, the highest grade Mince is close to P400 this contains less than 5% fat and is termed a Steak Mince. Diced Steak for stewing is P575, prime Steak for Frying which is 30 day matured is P1,200, P1,400 in the higher priced supermarket. Today I bought a Beef Joint for P460KG, this is no good for roasting and needs to be boiled to tenderise it, however this will be perfect for a Dutch Hutspot with plenty of flavour.

Chicken Breast Fillet is P400 per kilo, but buy a big family pack of 1.8 kg and you can reduce this price by 20%, more recently our supermarkets supply Thigh Fillets without bones, these are the same price as the breast, but far better flavoured with a nice moist texture.

Pork starts at P300 per Kg rising to P400 for the best Pork Loin Fillet. I can buy a good Pork Sausage here for P180Kg, likely they are not high quality, but they are tasty with very little fat in them, perhaps the higher priced quality sausage have no better ingredients in them anyway?

Large eggs are P150 per Doz.

Milk is P105 per 2.2ltr carton.

Potatoes range from P30 to 60 per KG, Carrots P30KG, Onions P45Kg.

For a basic long grained White Rice this is P30KG, Sugar is P50KG, I was surprised to find this is home grown in UK. this has gone up around P10 in the last 3 months.

All the above pricing is standard and none 0are offer prices, good offers are available in all our supermarkets every day, only today I bought an item I wanted and found that if I bought 4 of the same, (different flavours were available) I could get them half price, in the Philippines if you can find an offer with a 10% reduction you are doing well, where in UK we do not consider offers until they have a reduction of 20% or more, I think it fair to say I can buy the food I want to eat here in UK at half or even less than the price I had to pay in PH.