It happens in Lebanon with every crisis ... they store food as if starvation is at the door

Hala Al-Khatib - Beirut

When a crisis strikes, you find the Lebanese rushing to the shops as if the famine was knocking on the doors. They supply long-term and highly-consumable items.

Stackable foodstuffs: flour, rice, sugar and cereals of all kinds, canned goods, and a sizable number of ready-made foods to prepare.

Then they focus on cleaning materials and buy the cheapest and huge quantities, which made the stores that operate in bulk flourish and sell intensively despite the high prices that occurred as a result of the high price of the informal dollar in the parallel market by more than 40%.

the fear
As a result of the restrictions imposed by banks to transfer dollars in abroad, and to refrain from opening credits for merchants to import from abroad as was previously the case, a state of apprehension arose from the loss of the basic materials that are imported, so there was a rash in purchasing these materials from wholesale and retail stores and storing them in homes.

A citizen who still tastes wars is stuck in his mind, and its images are prepared on the memory screen, so he deals with any rumors related to war, siege or economic crisis, so how if the crisis appears in his diaries and expenses.

Citizen Mohamed Sadiq says to Al Jazeera Net that nothing is excluded in Lebanon after the economic collapse that he is experiencing and being affected by the tense regional conditions around it. Thus, taking food and financial reserves becomes a necessity.

So, "I bought supplies of flour (bags) of flour, rice, sugar, lentils and some grains, in addition to a number of cans, gas bottles and others, as many others did," the citizen adds.

Height
Rima Grady (housewife) says that she is now paying the foreign nanny who works with her in the lira, because her husband earns his salary in the local currency on the one hand, in addition to the difficulty of obtaining the dollar on the other hand, and if it is found, it is not available at the official exchange rate.

She adds that she felt that the supermarket bill suddenly rose in all the materials, the prices in general increased, especially the imported materials, and "the simplest like the lip balm I used was the price of 12 thousand pounds, it became 18 thousand, and even local materials increased their prices, but less."

She adds that she has personally supplied (stored) milk, rice and cereals to save meat and chicken consumption so that there is a balance in the expense.

"I didn't feel the lack of materials yet, but I had to manage things differently to suit the crisis, and cut my monthly household expenses due to lack of cash," says Rima.

insane
Jenderk Jabbour says that some consumer prices have doubled. She gives an example of sugar that was four thousand pounds per five kilograms, so it became at least 6500, and a kilogram of rice was one thousand pounds, its price became 2500, and the thickness of the brine was eight thousand became 15 thousand pounds, while milk increased its price three times, and the price of meat also increased 50%.

She adds that, on average, prices have increased by about 35% if we look at the combined bill. Also, some of the materials remained the same price as bread and some types of vegetables and seasonal fruits.

Jenderk states that she usually goes to popular shops that always have discount offers, and yet the bill is becoming unbearable.

Multiplied
Diab Murtada, the owner of a food store in Beirut, says, "Despite the high prices, sales of storable foodstuffs have multiplied several times."

As for the luxuries, their sales have declined sharply, and there is a demand for new brands and brands that have entered the market recently at competitive prices. Some materials were not originally imported by agents.

As for the rise in prices, Murtada says it is normal compared to the rise in the price of the dollar, because Lebanon imports more than 90% of its needs. The only materials whose prices have not increased by a high percentage are locally produced vegetables and fruits, and bread that is still subsidized by the state, while the demand for luxuries is almost non-existent.

from Syria
While some economize in quantity and quality, others resort to storing in large quantities, each according to his economic situation and the liquidity he possesses, according to Murtada, who adds that some who usually go to Syria are bringing their needs of consumer and food items from there, even that their relatives and neighbors have come to recommend them to bring after the purposes for them.

The villages
It is noteworthy that the vice president of Beirut Traders Association, Jihad al-Tanir, had stated that the movement of markets had decreased by about 80% from last year, and that the demand was only for purchasing some foodstuffs.

According to the Beirut Traders Association, 3,250 commercial establishments closed from June 2018 until the end of 2019.

And in any visit to any commercial store, whether in cities or villages, it can be seen that the prices have increased unevenly.

But in the villages to a lesser extent, especially since there are no large supermarkets but most of them are a mini market or a shop where the number of employees is small, and sometimes the owner of the shop alone or a member of his family helps him, which does not arrange a significant increase in prices in the original. Likewise, the lack of rapid discharge of goods, as some of them did not run out of goods, especially the remote villages in the winter, where the population is greatly reduced due to the displacement to the cities for work and study.