The "Pepe’s roast" to the "cuqui roast": promote new price of meat

“We want to find an area with the meatpacking industry and with the butchers’ unions to achieve some type of meat that is not neck, unacceptable, that is within the Uruguayan culture. Fundamentally, that the asado is reasonably priced for the average Uruguayan consumerMujica announced, according to the Presidency portal at the time.

In those years, what later became known as the “asado del Pepe” it cost $36 a kilo when the minimum wage was $2,050.

“Pepe’s Roast” at $36

It took 17 years, two Frente Amplio governments in the middle, and a change of party in government, for the current President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, to promote a similar strategy and the photo would repeat itself.

Two years after his assumption, Lacalle announced a new price agreement that affects the sale of fresh, frozen or chilled beef from the roast cut of 10 to 13 ribs. The initiative proposed by the president removes the Value Added Tax (VAT) from strip roast, which results in “a decrease of around $50” per kilogram.

Like Mujica’s proposal, it is expected to be for a short term (in principle, it was set to be for 30 days). Currently, the minimum wage is $19,364 per month.

Just as it happened in 2005, when a few days later various butcher shops reported a depletion of their stock, according to La Red 21, since last Wednesday the sale of roast at $230 per kilo has been gaining more prominence in butcher shops, they confirmed to The Observer the presidents of the unions that bring together the merchants of the sector.

According to what they said, the first sales were made last Wednesday, which increased on Thursday, based on the fact that their suppliers began to massively distribute the product with the new price.

The Revolution meat butcher shop, which had already put out a poster at the time with the “asado del Pepe”, is one of those that shows off the promotion in front of its entrance, located between Gauna and Comercio. He exposes it as “asado del Cuqui (in reference to Lacalle Pou) at $230”.

The balance of the “asado del Pepe”

The project promoted during the first administration of Vázquez had, three months after its creation, good and bad signs for the butchers. Although sales took off as soon as the sale was made public and the butcher shops were filled with customers cheering for “Pepe’s barbecue”, consumption later stabilized and sales fell.

During that period, Uruguayans bought between 20% and 30% more roast, although later they maintained almost the same consumption of beef as before the announcement, Heber Falero, current president of the Union, explained at the time to El Espectador. of Meat Vendors.

“The consumption of barbecue at first increased a lot, then it fell, and remained stable at higher levels than before. I think that in some areas it was to the detriment of other cuts, because there was a greater influx of people in the Butcher shops, mainly in the first months when it was advertised a lot. There was an increase in the consumption of meat that has since normalized. In neighborhoods where there is not high purchasing power, in general, people changed from buying other types of cut to the asado,” Falero said at the time.

The reduction of the roast was activated from last Wednesday

Regarding the current measure, the presidents of the unions estimated that the operative promoted by the government will be fully active from this weekbut what sales will reach optimum volume as soon as April begins and an important part of the set of consumers resumes meat purchases, given that their expenditures depend on the collection of wages and these purchases decrease markedly at the end of each month.

The government established that the “medium quality” roast, the emblem cut and most consumed by Uruguayans, have a maximum price of $230 per kilogram to the public.