A Facebook post by the Cuban Yordanka Battle Moré triggered a wave of collective identification as she described how the foods that defined the tables of the poorest — guava paste on bread, fried eggs, soy yogurt, Toki soda — have become increasingly difficult to afford for many Cubans.
“What was once the food of the poor is now a luxury,” wrote Battle Moré, who recalls that less than seven years ago he had breakfast of bread with omelet and soy yogurt that were sold freely.
In the year 2000, while she was on a scholarship in the tenth grade, her mother saved the bread for the whole week to make her toast, and completed the snack with a guava bar and two Toki sodas.
Today, that same menu is almost impossible to afford. A coffee cake or a guava roll —which the author describes as "the sweet of the poor for all time"— costs 450 pesos at the most affordable bakeries. "Even having a pastry with guava is almost a religious experience," she wrote.
The comments on the post created a price map that is shocking: Conchita guava paste is sold for 1,200 pesos; spaghetti for 650 pesos in areas outside of Playa and Vedado; and Zuko soda —a substitute for Toki, which "almost doesn't exist"— costs 350 pesos.
The pound of chicken reached 800 pesos in Havana in September, the carton of 30 eggs hit 5,000 pesos in some areas, and a small onion was sold for 610 pesos recently in Havana.
A commentator summarized the historical regression by recalling that in the 1970s, the grocery store offered powdered milk, cookies, 12 cans of evaporated and condensed milk, eggs, meat every nine days, bacon, blood sausages, fish, ice cream, and all kinds of bread, and that it was possible to dine out at restaurants with a monthly salary.
"We were rich and we didn't know it; as the decades pass, we have less, and as long as we blame the neighbors, we will continue to be worse off," wrote another.
The question that resonated the most in the thread was: "How is someone surviving without family abroad to support them, living on a salary or a paycheck?"
Inflation leaves many Cubans without a meal
Official data confirms the significant price increases reported on social media. According to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the year-on-year inflation in the formal market reached 20.70% in July 2026.
The primary driver of the increase was food and non-alcoholic beverages, which rose by 3.51% in July and accounted for 63.18% of the total increase in the CPI.
In the face of this spiral, the minimum wage in effect since July is just 3,210 pesos per month, while a calculation recently shared by a resident of Havana estimated the expenses of a small family in Havana at around 205,000 pesos per month.
The basic food expenses for two adults in the capital are estimated at around 41,735 pesos per month. The CEEC has warned that the official inflation could approach 25% by the end of the year.
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