A Cuban comedian summarized decades of economic decline under the dictatorship in just 18 seconds: Roberto Riverón, known on social media as "Robertico y su gozadera," published a video on Facebook where he captures the bitter humor of the price trajectory of the bread from the ration book, a product that rose from five cents to 30 pesos without ever improving in quality.
"These little breads used to cost five cents, then they raised the price to pesos, and now they cost 30 pesos. But the most interesting thing is that at no point did it improve; it’s always been the same old bad bread," says Riverón.
The description made by the comedian is no exaggeration: the price trajectory of the rationed bread accurately reflects the collapse of the Cuban supply system.
With the Monetary Reform on January 1, 2021, the bread from the ration book skyrocketed from half a cent to one peso, a sudden increase of 20 times. The quality did not improve: during that period, 13% of the population rejected the product despite the new price, according to data from that time.
In September 2024, the regime further reduced the weight of the unit from 80 to 60 grams due to a shortage of imported flour, lowering the official price to 75 cents. Less bread, worse bread, at a higher price.
In the informal market, prices have skyrocketed to levels that make the 30 pesos in the video seem like a bargain.
In Havana, bread reached 90 pesos each on May 1st, while a bag of eight loaves skyrocketed from 480 to 700 pesos in just one day on June 21st in the capital.
In other provinces, the situation is the same or worse: in Cienfuegos, bread has reached 150 pesos, in the Isle of Youth it is 110 pesos, and in Holguín—where prices are lower—low-quality bread is reported at 25 or 30 pesos, the figure mentioned by Riverón in his video.
The crisis is not just about price.
A mother of eight children in Matanzas reported on February 18 that she paid 200 pesos for each soft bread roll. In Villa Clara, since February, regulated bread is only distributed to minors under 13 and seniors over 65.
In Guantánamo, flour arrives by mules and bread is baked with firewood due to the lack of electricity and fuel.
The quality of the product, as the comedian points out, never improved at any stage. Cubans report bread that is hard, misshapen, with an unpleasant odor, and with a weight below the legal requirement.
In July 2024, a citizen demonstrated the poor quality of the bread by hitting it with a hammer in a video that went viral, and in some cases, Cubans have to soak the bread in sweetened water in order to consume it.
In March, a young woman posted a video on TikTok claiming that she had not received bread in her community for three weeks and that she had to buy a bag in the informal market for 350 pesos.
The ration booklet was created on March 12, 1962, to ensure basic food at subsidized prices. More than six decades later, the system has collapsed, and bread—symbol of that unfulfilled promise—remains, as Riverón summarizes, "the same old bad bread as always."
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