A Cuban identified as Lety Lety, a self-employed worker (TCP), posted a video on Facebook in which she indignantly denounced the price of juices in Cuba: 300 pesos for a box and 500 pesos for a can, products she had to purchase for her sick daughter.
“And how much do you think these juices cost me? 300 pesos for a box of juice. And 500 pesos for a can of juice. What is this? How long will this last?” the woman asked in the recording.
Lety acknowledges that she could afford the purchase thanks to her job, but directs her distress towards those who do not have that possibility: "Thank God I have the money, and I could buy this for my daughter because she is sick. How many mothers don’t have a peso to buy this for their children?"
The woman pointed out that the situation is particularly serious because, as she states, "there are currently millions of children with digestive illnesses" in Cuba, making access to basic beverages like juices an urgent necessity that many families cannot fulfill.
In her complaint, she directly pointed to the small and medium enterprises (mipyme) as responsible for the exorbitant prices, with an accusation that goes beyond the market: "Everyone knows who the mipyme are. So, are they just lining their pockets?"
As a TCP, Lety described the vicious circle in which she operates: she buys supplies at prices skyrocketed by the exchange rate of the dollar and is forced to sell at a high price or shut down. "Because they sell things to you at a ridiculously high price. When you come to sell, you have to sell at an expensive price. What do we do? As someone told me one day, I close the business. I don’t sell. What do I live on?" she laments.
The Cuban concluded her message with a question that encapsulates the frustration of many on the island: "It is already a lack of respect what they have towards us Cubans. A lack of respect, a lack of empathy, a lack of morals, a lack of humanity. How long will this last?"
This testimony arrives in a context of food prices that have gone haywire on the island.
On June 20, the Cuban regime removed the price caps on imported basic products —chicken, oil, powdered milk, pasta, and sausages— through Resolution 150/2026, part of a package of 176 economic measures presented by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz.
The dollar in the informal market is trading between 655 and 695 Cuban pesos, making all imported products more expensive.
The official year-on-year inflation in May 2026 was 15.89%, with prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages rising by 19.24%. However, independent estimates suggest that the actual inflation rate is around 70%.
The average monthly salary in Cuba is around 5,827 pesos, while a basic purchase in the informal market can exceed 30,000 pesos, an impossible arithmetic depicted in viral videos that are multiplying on social media.
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