Chile Forum

For those of us who did not lose their hogar, as life returns to normal or approaches normality, I thought it would be good to start a thread tracking where supply disruptions for specific products, increased demand for specific services and similar are showing signs of price inflation or shortages.

I'll start with products.

We all know about:

BEER - CCU producer of Cristal, Escudo and Royal in Santiago will take three months to repair that Santiago facility and will begin compensating in the next month by producing more in Argentina and their other plant in Temuco.

Short term solution: Becker beer seems to be a good and affordable substitute for the increase in Escudo and Cristal prices.

San Jorge vienessas - a USA origin machine important for their operation is broke and they do not know when it will be replaced. Restaurants have been cleaning out the stock of supermarkets in Santiago.

I don't buy San Jorge but I plan on stocking up on my favorite brand and freezing for LT storage as the local supermarket is still selling it at the February 26 price.

Table or bulk wine - Any reports of Gato and similar going up in price?

I am still able to buy my favorite at the same February 26 price and will begin "stocking up" for the coming price increases.


Please continue with your observations and experiences, I can only imagine what the builder types on the forum are seeing……………

Please continue with your observations and experiences, I can only imagine what the builder types on the forum are seeing……………

I have not been able to locate cement block for building. There is also a shortage of small gas powered generators of which I have seen alot of them brought back to the store for return. Easy & the mac both have empty store shelves where there were flashlights and emergency lights displayed...now nothing but a few batteries. I have been looking for a dc/ac converter for my truck but those sold out as soon as the stores opened up after the quake.

I went shopping at Jumbo in La Serena yesterday (Tuesday 16th March) and noticed signs saying "family consumption only" (in Spanish of course, I forget how they phrased it) for beer and bar soap. There might have been a few more items restricted, but certainly not very many. I didn't see any restrictions in the Lider today.

Anything construction related is running out I hear. All the guys doing construction are happy, happy, and jacking the prices up.

I just found out today that in Temuco our office building is in big demand as it is one of the newest in the city and only had minor cosmetic damage. We spoke to the ladies that rent the offices, and they say what happened is that all the businesses from the the buildings downtown that were damaged need either temporary or permanent office space. Many are just leaving those other buildings for good.

I also seen a couple of 20 floor apartment buildings today in central Temuco that are going to need to be leveled, and the owners had spray painted all kinds of nasty things on the front walls. Suspect there is no assets left in the company that built it.

They are bringing criminal charges against that company in Concepción that the building collapsed and all the people were killed. Seems the company that built it went to Chillian the next day and transfered all their assets to another company. Some reporter tracked it down.

They are going to prosecute the people at the ONEMI office and in the navy for the tsunami warning mess up. There it also seems that victims of the tsunami are going to give Chile's new class action law suits a spin, and are organizing cases against the officials from the former government. It was just pure lazy and sloppy work. Which in the previous government mostly just meant annoying bureaucrats you could not get to sign your papers on time, but in this situation cost lives. Lots of lives.

We observed the shortage in emergency lights too after Sunday's blackout. We contributed to it a little bit because we complemented our stock after the earthquake (but before the blackout!).

I'm told the apartment/house rental market is losing its slack.

Food prices seem stable so far.

The government reminded that excessive price hikes can and will be prosecuted under laws covering catastrophic circumstances. Not sure how it's really measured and enforced.

It seems there are more container ships going to Valpo these days, so I suspect some of these shortages will prove temporary. Everything construction-related, I think inflation expectations are reasonable (the expectations, not the inflation!).

It's happened.

Bulk wine prices are blasting off.

A bottle of pisco might become a viable substitute to us drinkers.

Beer prices of Escudo and Cristal have come done a little though.

Both GATO and 120 (1.5 Lt bottle), and "Exportacion", and the like, went up to 1890 pesos in JUMBO/Temuco (as of 4/14/2010). The GATO was at 1690, and the 120 was at 1490 at the very same JUMBO.

In some remote village, that is the nearest one to me, the cheapest GATO (1.5 Lt bottle) went up to 1800 - 1900 pesos (from 1600 -- 1700). The cheapest 120 (1.5 Lt bottle) went up to 1800 pesos (from 1650).

Canned JUREL (al natural) went up in price considerably.

Yeah the jurel I used to buy for 669 (320g drained - be careful some are only 300g drained) was from Concepción. Local supermarket now cleaned out of that brand.

The 829-889 Becker beer liter bottles have also been cleaned out from all the supermarkets in the area.

Thanks for this discussion. I am on my way soon and haven't thought about many of these items and will arrange to pack. I think I will give the cement a miss though!

With regards to the "Jurel al Natural" -- there're around 10 or 20 Chilean brands currently. Sometimes, in the past, it was possible to get the cheapest ones at 580 pesos, or so.

Read the label carefully: one of these (that is "made" in the 8th Region) is actually Chinese (imported).

If you find a reliable brand, that tastes good, it may be a good idea not to experiment with all the others. Once, some taste of formaldehyde (or whatever similar), was clearly accompanying one of the "new" brand's Jurel.

Whoa, did not know about the China sold as Chile jurel. Wait a moment while I analyze my disaster stocks...

they're OK

BTW disaster planners, a can of jurel remains good for four years from date of manufacture.

RuneTheChookcha wrote:... it was possible to get the cheapest ones at 580 pesos, or so. ...

Somewhere back in 2003-2004 you could pick up 3 cans for 1000 pesos. Gone are those days due to fiat inflation, overfishing and now less production due to EQ disruption.

Chile should use their Armada and spanking modern airforce to address the overfishing being done by the offshore multinational fishing boats and packers.