A Cuban content creator highlighted on Wednesday the cost of a school snack on the island, where a loaf of bread, a guava jelly bar, and a small beverage exceed 500 pesos.
Alianis Leyva showed in a video on Facebook that a loaf of bread costs 250 pesos, a bar of guava candy 350 pesos, and a soft drink around 100 pesos.
Although she explained that the bread can be distributed between breakfast, the mid-morning snack, and another after school, and that the other products can last for two days, she warned that for those with more than one child, "it's really an impossible mission."
The video ends with a question about whether salaries around 5,000 pesos are adequate to handle those prices.
The calculation by Leyva adds to other complaints about the cost of feeding school-age children. In mid-August, José E. González Marín estimated the expense at more than 10,000 pesos per month for 30 breakfasts and 30 snacks for a single child, not including lunch, transportation, clothing, or school supplies.
According to González, a worker earning the average salary would have to allocate it entirely to those two meals and would still need an additional 3,230 pesos to cover them for a month.
The National Office of Statistics and Information reported that the average monthly salary in Cuba was 7,074 pesos in April 2026. The minimum wage was raised to 3,210 pesos starting in July, while food prices continue to distance themselves from workers' incomes.
The situation worsened after Resolution 150/2026 from the Ministry of Finance and Prices lifted the price caps on basic imported food items such as oil, sausages, chopped chicken, powdered milk, and pasta in June.
The oil was sold for between 4,000 and 7,000 pesos per liter, while the sausages reached 1,200 pesos.
Cuban mothers recently reported on social media that even the powdered drink packages could not be guaranteed to be in good condition for school snacks.
"What are the children going to have for their snack if there's not even bread with oil?" asked a mother identified as Kenia Palacio in the group Madres Cubanas Luchadoras 2.
The situation is even more serious inside the classrooms. According to data from the World Food Program released in August, 48.5% of Cuban students aged 6 to 11 do not receive any meals or snacks at school.
The organization activated in July an emergency project in five eastern provinces to assist 12,677 children in 74 educational centers.
The 2026-2027 school year began on September 1 amid power outages lasting over 20 hours a day and a shortage of at least 24,000 teachers, which is equivalent to 12.5% of the anticipated positions. The previous school year ended prematurely due to the energy crisis.
The economist Javier Pérez Capdevila estimated in June that a person needs around 96,000 pesos per month to cover basic needs in Cuba, of which about 70,000 are solely for food, a figure that makes school snacks an unattainable luxury for most Cuban families.
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