A woman identified as Geneida Herrera posted a video on Facebook last Saturday that has garnered over 635,000 views, in which she details how she confronted a crowd to buy beef at the informal market known as "El Karaoke," in Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus province.
In the video posted from the Hostal Mirelis profile, Herrera recounts that she managed to get a four-pound bag of beef for 3,200 Cuban pesos —800 pesos per pound— but the experience left her shaken: the crowd pressed her against the sales truck nearly causing her to lose her glasses.
"This was my first time buying beef. I was able to buy 4 pounds for 3,200. But what a scare, the crowd pushed me against the truck, I got frightened, until I decided to use my extra strength and managed to get out, oh my goodness," wrote the woman in the post.
In the video, visibly distressed, she adds: "1,000 pesos for the head; that's how I ended up, that's how I ended up after getting the beef, they even took my glasses, I almost lost them, I'm so scared."
Herrera clarified that he would not have put himself in that situation if it weren't for his mother: "I had to do it for my mom who needs it; if it were up to me, I wouldn't put myself in such a position."
In addition to beef, the fair had neck meat for 1,000 pesos per pound and ribs for 500 pesos.
The "El Karaoke" fair —named after a karaoke located nearby— operates only on Saturdays and serves as the main source of fresh food for the residents of Trinidad, with participation from nearly 50% of the local agricultural production bases.
Despite being relatively cheaper than other outlets, its prices remain out of reach for most Cubans.
The average monthly salary in Cuba is around 7,000 pesos, which means that the four pounds of meat purchased by Herrera represent almost half of what a worker earns in a month.
The scene reflects the food price crisis that Cuba is experiencing, worsened since the regime lifted price caps through Resolution 150/2026, dated June 21 of last year.
Since then, the price of rice has increased from 30,000 to 31,800 pesos per 25-kilogram sack in just 48 hours, and the price of oil has risen from 1,400 to 1,800 pesos per liter.
According to the Food Monitor Program, 96.91% of the Cuban population lacks adequate access to nutritious food, and 33.9% of households had at least one member who went to bed hungry in the last 30 days.
The situation in Trinidad is not new. In November 2024, during a visit to Sancti Spíritus, the Cuban vice president noted that beef was a "luxury" for the population, as the price for a pound was around 2,755 pesos.
By this July, that price had already exceeded 800 pesos per pound at the same fair, although in other fairs across the country it reached as high as 1,000 pesos.
The collapse of national agricultural production worsens the situation: pig production fell from 200,000 tons in 2018 to just 9,000 in 2026, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find basic products in the markets of the Island.
Herrera's video accumulated 10,819 likes and 511 comments, becoming yet another testament to the daily desperation faced by Cubans in accessing basic food supplies.
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