Expert: «People yearn for positive emotions»
Easter is inevitably approaching, and this, among others, gives rise to a purely mercantile question: how much will Russians' spending on Easter cakes increase now compared to last year? According to economists, the answer lies in a fairly wide price range — from 5% to 20%. Meanwhile, since we are talking about the main Christian holiday, the situation cannot be viewed in a purely consumer plane: people are driven by other motives. And even more so, one should not draw analogies with the well-known American Big Mac index or the domestic borscht index.
In fact, all the price statistics associated with one of the symbols of Easter are from the evil one. It is possible to calculate how much certain ingredients have risen in price over a certain period of time, and the baking itself as a whole, but in this case, these things are clearly fading into the background. Nevertheless, a lot of consumer research appeared on the eve of the holiday. According to one of them, prepared with the help of artificial intelligence, Russians will spend an average of 318 rubles on Easter cakes (or their own production), which is 11% more than last year and 44% more than in 2021. It also turned out that 59% buy one Easter cake for the holiday, 22% — two, 19% — more than two.
The executive director of the Rusprodsoyuz association, Dmitry Vostrikov, shared with MK his calculations of the cost of Easter baking. He took the classic recipe, in which for cooking you need: 350 grams of flour; 170 milliliters of milk; 2 chicken eggs; 100 grams of sugar; 70 grams of butter; 100 grams of dried fruits; for glaze — 2 egg whites and 100 grams of sugar. According to official data from Rosstat, prices for milk, butter and dried fruits increased by 12.2%, 10% and 19.5% respectively (in February 2023 against February 2022). And in the general percentage ratio, Easter cake has risen in price by 5.4%, taking into account the reduction in the cost of other ingredients, Vostrikov calculated.
As for the Easter table (a set of Easter cake, a dozen eggs and Easter), it will now cost Russians 12-20% more, mainly due to cottage cheese, condensed milk and butter, says Maria Dolgova, Associate Professor of the Department of State and Municipal Finance of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics . According to her, in different stores and marketplaces, Easter cakes weighing half a kilo are sold at prices ranging from 140 rubles to 1.5 thousand.
Meanwhile, since the recipes are not counted, the cost may vary depending on the mass, the set of ingredients used and proportions. Therefore, by the way, it is fundamentally wrong (as some enthusiasts in social networks suggest) to calculate the «Easter Easter cake index» — by analogy with the American Big Mac index, data on which has been published by The Economist since 1986. Comparing the prices of a burger across countries (as an indicator of inflation and the purchasing power of the local currency against the US dollar) is quite representative, since all over the world this fast food item includes the same products in the same proportions.
« Easter cake on average has risen in price no higher than last year's inflation rate of 11%, — says Nikita Maslennikov, a leading expert at the Center for Political Technologies. — But people who take it in stores or bake it themselves from components bought in advance, almost certainly do not feel this. After all, Easter is a big holiday, which, moreover, happens only once a year. It's out of any price range. And it's not just the believers. People yearned for positive emotions, for which they are ready to pay any money. It is important for them to free themselves, even if not for long, from the burden of endless problems, to experience enlightenment, joy. In the past and the year before last (pandemic) years, many were clearly not up to it. And since the demand for Easter cakes is growing, so are the prices.”
By the way, Maslennikov summarizes, the range of offers is also changing: in particular, in stores you can find noticeably more very small, “disposable” Easter cakes — not for a family, but on a person.