Seyda Bal, who works at a bank in Istanbul, is so anxious about the rising price of groceries that she's lapsed into a pandemic-era habit: hoarding packaged goods like coffee and toilet paper.
"I buy a lot of basic foods such as oil, pasta, rice, tahini, molasses ... thinking that next month they will cost twice as much," Bal, 27, said.
The Swiss group is adapting its product ranges in the region to "make them more meaningful to the consumer", and considering whether to make some products "more affordable", according to Karim Al Bitar, head of consumer research and market intelligence at Nestle's Middle East and North Africa unit."Nestle is seeing hoarding with bouillon, to an extent soups, coffee for sure," Al Bitar told Reuters.
"What does that tell us that people are concerned about? Stock availability," Weiss said, adding the retailer was seeing about 9.5% inflation on average, and particular pressure in countries such as Egypt, Kenya and Georgia. "I have bought about 10 50-kilogram bags of flour and just as much of sugar," Eldar, 28, an entrepreneur based in Almaty, Kazakhstan said. "There are rumors that sugar shortages are expected and I wanted to have a stockpile."