The effects of the coronavirus pandemic have reached as far as our Christmas food shopping trolley, but for once, the news is good. With just days to go before Spaniards celebrate Christmas Eve with their traditional gourmet spread, prices of the most popular festive food items have dropped by an average of 4.1% compared with last year according to OCU, the Spanish Consumer Association.
In their analysis, OCU tracked the prices of 15 typical Christmas food items (suckling lamb, rolled veal, pullet, turkey, pre-cut Iberian ham, red cabbage, pineapple, sea bream, farmed sea bass, hake, elvers, cooked langoustines, Galician barnacles, clams and oysters), which are all in high demand at this time of year, across municipal markets, supermarkets and hypermarkets in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza.
Despite the fact that fish and shellfish have been getting gradually more expensive over the past few years, this year has seen lower prices than last year for sea bass (-20%), barnacles (-17%), clams (-13%), red sea bream (-11%) and langoustines (-9%). In contrast, elvers and oysters have both increased substantially in price (+25% and +11% respectively).
At the meat counter, there is little difference to be seen compared with the same week in 2019, although small price increases were noted for rolled veal (+3%), suckling lamb (+2%) and turkey (+1%). Iberian ham, however, one of the mainstays of every household's Christmas starter platter, is 12% cheaper than last year.
Nevertheless, the OCU's report recognises that food items in general have gone up1% on average since November 25th. The items which have gone up most in price are clams (+19%), sea bream (+17%) and hake (+13%). On the other hand, the three items that have dropped the most in price are pullet (-29%) elvers (-7%) and rolled veal (-5%).
