In the midst of a shortage of products and serious delays in the distribution of the regulated family basket, a MSME in Villa Clara supplies almost all of the wineries in the municipality of Caibarién.
REMpeZ, SRL & Comercio, a local development project, distributes basic foods such as bread, cookies and hamburgers at “affordable prices” in 39 of the 41 warehouses in that town.
It is an offer that “people appreciate”, because “it somewhat alleviates the deficit of other products”, said cited by Granma the director of Commerce of that territory, Ketty Orozco Mederos.
Lázaro Morilla, head of REMpeZ, explained that since last August 13, the MSME has collaborated with the local Commerce and Gastronomy Company to guarantee reasonable prices in wineries, butcher shops and direct sales at its headquarters, where 30 workers work.
Prices include bread balls at 30 pesos, packages of cookies at 250 and 400 pesos, and hamburgers at 100 pesos, accessible to many residents, the report adds.
2025, “challenging” year for Domestic Trade
Last April, the Minister of Domestic Trade, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, warned of another “challenging” year for the trade sector, amid “serious effects” on the production and distribution of products in the country.
In interview with Granmathe owner then pointed out that the effects are due to several factors, among them, that the state gastronomy does not have access to external resources, and recognized that “the prices are not the most affordable.”
“We have had serious effects on the regulated family basketwhich is a prioritized program, which forced us to look for various alternatives to diversify the offers in the wineries and centers of the sector,” he said.
Although the products in the family basket are insufficient for Cubans, they represent some relief for several households. However, after the pandemic and especially in recent years, the timely arrival of regulated products to the tables of Cuban families has become difficult.
In this context, the minister highlighted that The Cuban Government has established alliances with the private sector to establish “favorable contracts for both parties, taking advantage of the possibility they have of accessing external financing.”
Hence, the Government urgently sees multiplying food production in national processing centers and “exercising greater control over resources,” he adds. Granma.
Last year, the president Miguel Diaz-Canel He said in 2024 that the Government will allocate 230 million dollars monthly to guarantee basic basket products and distribute them in more than 12 thousand warehouses throughout the country.
Cuba has been mired in a serious economic and energy crisis for more than five years, evident in the shortage of basic products (food, medicine and fuel), high inflation, economic contraction, growing dollarization and prolonged daily blackouts.
According to estimates by Cuban economist Pavel Vidal, real inflation on the island in 2025, which, unlike the monthly reports of the ONEI, includes prices in the largest and best-stocked informal market, “would be around 70%.”
Inflation has tripled prices on the island since 2020, according to official statistics. The consumer price index (CPI) closed in 2021 above 77%; while in 2022 it stood at 39.07%; in 2023, at 31.34%, and in 2024, at 24.88%.
The combination of the Covid-19 pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions since the first Trump Administration (2017-2021) and failed national economic and monetary policies have aggravated the structural problems of the national economy.
