Havana/If Cubans learned anything in 2025, it was to read the agricultural markets like someone who consults the weather forecast: not to know if it will rain tomorrow, but to calculate how much food will be able to get into the house before the money evaporates. It was a year without respite for prices and with a novelty that ceased to be an anecdote and became a landscape: the definitive consecration of imported products in lines that, until recently, were of national production.
Rice, pork, citrus, onion, garlic and even sugar finished changing their accent. From Creoles they began to speak English, Portuguese or peninsular Spanish. The United States, Mexico, Panama, Brazil and Spain snuck onto the Cuban table not out of gastronomic preference, but out of pure necessity. National food became scarce, irregular or unviable, and the market responded with the logic it knows best: bringing in from outside to take advantage of the desperate demand for food.
One of the products that sums up the year that is ending was rice, that domestic thermometer that defines whether there is lunch or just a meal at night. In the Plaza Boulevard market in Sancti Spíritus, a pound of Creole rice started January at 150 pesos. By July it had already reached 280 and, after a slight “rest” forced by the state intervention to try to regulate its price, December found it at 250 pesos. It did not decrease due to a productive miracle, but because many private sellers chose to hide it or replace it with imported rice, conveniently outside of any regulation. The result was simple: less Creole rice in sight and more bags with foreign labels.
The pound of Creole rice started January at 150 pesos. By July it had already reached 280
That dynamic was repeated over and over again. The capped prices, announced with a tone of final order, collided with three walls that were difficult to cross: the constant devaluation of the Cuban peso, unsatisfied demand and the obstinacy of merchants, who know very well that selling below costs is not altruism, but ruin. Faced with the dilemma of losing money or pleasing the authorities, many chose a third way: remove the merchandise and place it on the leftwhere there are no inspectors or ministerial resolutions.
/ 14ymedio
The black bean, another classic national dish, offers a similar lesson. In the La Feria de Los Chinos market, in Holguín, the year started at 400 pesos per pound. In August, the supply was momentarily eased and dropped to 320. But the joy was short-lived. December returned it to 420 pesos, confirming that in Cuba sales are usually parentheses, not trends. Imported beans, meanwhile, entered the capped prices without asking permission and found their niche among those who prefer to pay more than never eat them.
Pork, historically queen of the Cuban table, ended up losing the crown in 2025. In the Youth Labor Army markets in Havana, managed by the Armed Forces but with most of the pallets from private sellers, imported pork loin began the year at 900 pesos per pound. In July it was already at 1,000 and closed December at 1,200. The Creole pig, hit by lack of feed, theft and the impossible costs of breeding, became a rarity. When it appeared, it did not always respect the official prices and, when it did, it disappeared the next day.
Pork, historically queen of the Cuban table, ended up losing the crown in 2025
Something similar happened with products that define daily cooking. The onion, for example, behaved like a financial asset. In the market on 19th and B, known ironically as La Boutique, in Havana, January began at 350 pesos per pound. In July it was already at 500 and December found it at 600. The smell did not change, but the origin did: more and more imported onion, better presented, more attractive and, above all, free of limits.
The 30-egg carton, that protein lifesaver of many homes, also made its leap. In private businesses in Holguín it went from 3,000 pesos at the beginning of the year to 3,200 in December. It is not a spectacular increase, but it is persistent, and it adds to a context where the average salary does not increase, pensions shrink and any increase, no matter how small it may seem, ends up hurting.
Scandalous has been the reappearance of the tangerine in private markets this year, not so much for its flavor, always pleasant and fragrant, but for its price: around 1,300 pesos per pound, which is equivalent to almost half of an average monthly pension on the Island. That citrus fruit arrived from Peru after years of absence and caused a mixture of astonishment, nostalgia and disenchantment. Many Cubans, especially the older ones, confessed that it had been more than five years since they had seen mandarins for sale.
The scene became iconic: along with American onions and Panamanian garlic, imported mandarins are sold in central points of Havana with labels that remember their origin, attracting those who see them as a piece of lost flavor. However, the price turns them into a painful paradox: what should be a return to freshness ends up being an almost inaccessible luxury for many pockets.
Along with American onions and Panamanian garlic, imported mandarins are sold in central points of Havana
There is a clear logic behind these numbers. The capped price policy, applied selectively, ended up encouraging just the opposite of what it intended. By regulating Creole rice and leaving imported rice untouched, a clear message was sent to the market: bring back what is not regulated. The result was an accelerated shift towards more expensive, but available, imported products.
With bitter irony, many consumers learned to distinguish foreign brands without ever having left the country. Not because of cosmopolitanism, but because Spanish onion, American rice or Brazilian pork were, paradoxically, more stable than their national equivalents. In 2025, the Cuban farmers market didn’t just sell food: it sold a daily lesson in basic economics. And the majority approved it by force.
