Veaceslav Ionitsa set a high tone to this topic in the Moldovan information space. The economist has calculated that a Moldovan family (though it is not clear how many members and how many generations) a festive table will cost about 7 thousand lei. This is about 40-60% of the average monthly net salary.
Taking into account the duration of the “holiday marathon” – 21 days, from December 24 to January 14 – Moldovans during this period will spend at least 600 million lei on food only. “The fear of an empty table encourages families to prepare dishes 150% more than necessary. Holidays, which should bring joy, turn out to be a huge stress for the household budget,” the expert summarizes.
However, not everything is so unambiguous, senseless and hopeless. According to the representatives of business associations of the agro-food sector, for at least the last two years the average Moldovan consumer has been learning to save money during the winter period. He receives utility bills and learns. This includes saving money on food products and at the same time changing gastronomic preferences.
Thus, the heads of companies that are members of the Patronage of meat processing industry PIPC, claim that compared to the “pre-holiday marathon” of the end of 2024, there is still an increase in sales. But it is small – about 5-7%, and not for all commodity items. In particular, the scale of “preference scales” is shifting towards store meat – lump and portioned – mainly poultry and pork. Whereas sales of sausages and, especially, meat delicacies are growing slowly or even stagnating.
In this regard, curiously enough, merchants in their marketing calculations have begun to divide the preferred “food baskets” for Catholic Christmas and New Year’s Eve. In the first case – these are ready-made products for the “period of corporate parties” and, indirectly, for HoReCa. In the second case – unprocessed products and semi-finished products “for the gretar”.
Of certain interest is also the observation of wholesale traders that in December of this year the average monthly sales of basic products of daily consumption: vegetable oil, sugar, cereals, pasta and bakery products remained practically unchanged. Some market operators are inclined to attribute this to the reduction of incomes and winter austerity mode, while others consider the outflow of population (intensifying during the “vacation period”) as the most important factor.
The “fish menu” during the winter holidays is usually quite rich, although Moldova does not yet have a deep European tradition of “Christmas carp”. Usually it is still replaced on the Moldovan table during winter holidays by “Soviet” sprats, smoked and salted fish (sometimes “under fur coat”). But perhaps not this time. Most likely, the tradition has been undermined by a multiple increase in prices for the notorious mackerel, which happened a month and a half ago. Large importers of seafood on the Moldovan market claimed that the other most popular (read, budget) types of fish, if they go up in price, then by a few percent. In fact, the prices for salted herring, etc. in chain retailers increased by 10-15%, which, given the exhausting nature of the “holiday marathon” in the winter period, is not insignificant.
According to Igor Grigoriev, executive director of the Association of fish and seafood importers AgroVector, after a significant rise in the price of sea fish, the Moldovan market went into shock in November and the first half of December, which was expressed in a 30-50% reduction in sales for a number of commodity items. However, there are already the first timid signs of pre-holiday sales recovery – both for traditional salted fish and red caviar. “The only thing that saves us from despondency is discounts and promotions.
Fruits on the Moldovan table during winter holidays, except for grapes “Moldova” and, perhaps, apples and plums of Japanese-Chinese type are exclusively imported citrus. According to traders, the most New Year’s fruits are mandarins.
There is almost complete calm on the Moldovan market of dairy products. Apart from drinking milk and sour-milk products for daily consumption, there is little demand for other goods. “A cheese plate is more an attribute of a friendly dinner at a restaurant or a ‘corporate party’ rather than a family feast on New Year’s Eve,” says Karolina Linte, executive director of the Association of Milk and Dairy Products Producers Lapte. – And demand for bryndza will start to increase closer to Orthodox Christmas”.
