RIA Novosti: Food spending taking up most of Russian household budgets – poll

(RIA Novosti – August 11, 2015)

Food items are becoming the largest part of the household budget, particularly meat and chicken, according to a poll commissioned for the Bank of Russia by the Infom company, RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) reported on 11 August.

“The main items Russians are cutting back on are groceries, primarily meat and chicken, fish and sea-food, cheeses and sausages, fruit and vegetables. However, the number cutting back on these things has fallen a bit since April, and noticeably for fruit and vegetables – almost by half, which is due to seasonal factors,” the Bank of Russia report said.

Almost half of those questioned in the poll in the last three months said they had had to cut spending on something they had planned previously, while in July the number of such people had risen noticeably since the last measurement in April 2015, the poll said according to RIA Novosti.

Almost two-thirds of respondents were cutting back on various foods, goods and services, although compared to the previous poll, the number had slightly fallen. Respondents also less often said that they had to cut back more than a year ago, however, that proportion remains quite large and is almost half of those polled, the report said.

The poll questioned 2,000 respondents aged 18 and above from 16-19 July 2015 in 55 Russian regions