Pocket pinch: Now, posto packs a pista punch in Bengal – Times of India

KOLKATA: Posto or poppy seeds, a popular and ubiquitous ingredient in Bengali cuisine, and pistachio or pista, an exotic dry fruit, now cost the same in Kolkata markets, in a pointer to a very skewed price structure of pantry staples, which has seen sudden jumps post-pandemic, leaving both retailers and consumers baffled.
In the last four years, the price of posto rose 300%, while the price of pistachio, which has always been very expensive, doubled to reach the same price level of Rs 2,400 per kilo.

Posto has thus become something that many middle- and upper middle-class households are avoiding. “We all love posto but can’t think of spending a fortune to buy it for my joint family. It has become an item of luxury that we can no longer afford,” said Ranajit Sarkar of Parnashree.
The soaring prices of posto and pista are indicative of the lopsided price-structure of essentials. Tomatoes, for instance, were selling at Rs 150 per kilo on Sunday. Even in early April, it was Rs 15 for the same amount, after Bengal’s home-grown produce hit the market.
It was a bumper yield, in fact, which had forced farmers to resort to a distress sale. “But it took less than a month to exhaust the stock, as there is no multi-purpose warehouse to store vegetables,” said Anuj Pradhan, a wholesaler at Barisha.
“In just one day, the price of tomato rose by Rs 70 a kilo,” Pradhan said. “Even yesterday, I sold it at Rs 80-Rs 90. But I had the shock of my life when I found tomatoes selling at Rs 700 a palla (5 kg).” Now, the entire supply is coming from other states. The quality of the produce is not very good either, he added.
‘Kitchen budget ate into health emergency savings’
The prices of rice, lentils, spices, edible oils, fish, mutton and chicken have followed a similar, unstable rise. “Earlier, the kitchen budget used to be 30% of the total household budget. Now, the kitchen budget is almost the entire household budget, leaving hardly any breathing space,” said Sanchita Banerjee, a school teacher from Bhowanipore.
Parboiled varieties of rice, particularly the fine- and long-grain ones, rose Rs 8- Rs 12 per kilo in two successive waves, in just two weeks. Pulses and lentils turned costlier by Rs 50 a kilo in a year. Edible oil price has gone up more than 100%, over the pre-pandemic prices. “The traders cite production and supply issues behind the price-rise of edible items. But when things swing to normalcy, prices remain where they were. There is hardly any cooling off,” said economist Abhigyan Das, who tracks retail prices.
Namita Dhar, who runs a snacks outlet at Tollygunge Phari, said that cutting corners alone was not enough to strike a budgetary balance. “In the last three years, the kitchen budget ate into the little savings I had for health emergencies. We have drastically sacrificed holidays, movies, and even weekend trips. Just think of an LPG cylinder, which rose by Rs 100 in a gap of 45 days,” said Dhar.
“The price of poppy seeds has gone beyond the affordability of many middle-class buyers like me,” said Mayukh Chowdhury, employee of a private firm. “I have forgotten when I last had something like the simple alu-posto at home.”