The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) reported 18 stock keeping units (SKUs) of ham products have increased their pries by 1 to 4 percent.
DTI Assistant Secretary Jean Pacheco, officer-in- charge of the DTI Consumer Protection Group bared this in a televised interview over the weekend ahead of the release middle of this month of the price guide on Noche Buena products.
According to Pacheco, the DTI’s price guide this Christmas will be more detailed and complete as it will contain at least 238 SKUs with their corresponding prices indicated. The number of SKUs has increased slightly from just 222 last year.
Pacheco said last September, the DTI asked the 22 manufactures of Noche Buena products to submit the list of their SKUs and their prices.
The DTI is awaiting the submission of two manufacturers before they finalize the price guide.
The Noche Buena products monitored by DTI cover
12 categories such as ham, fruit cocktail, cheese, queso de bola, mayonaise, sandwich spread, pasta spaghetti and elbow and salad macaroni, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce and all purpose cream.
Pacheco said in their meeting, manufactures of processed meats have r indicated plans to increase prices by 15 to 20 percent but they later decided to keep the hikes minimal.
Of the 30 SKUs of ham produced by six manufacturers, 18 raised prices by 1 to 4 percent, which is below inflation.
Prices of seven SKUs went down and seven others were unchanged.
“Filipinos have 30 SKUs of ham to choose from depending on their budget and the size of their family,” Pacheco said.
Based on the DTI monitoring , a 500-gram ham costs between P104 and P169; 700g, P230 and up; 800g P230 to P390; 1 kilogram, P339 to P650 and; 1.5 kg P890 to P900.
