Brexit clear the table of the English: a farewell to Knorr, Marmite and ice cream Magnum – The Republic

LONDON – so Far the fall of the pound has made itself felt mainly in the pockets of tourists and men of the british business, in departure to Europe: their journeys in the euro-zone shot cost 16 percent more than before the referendum with which the United Kingdom has approved Brexit. But now you feel at home. To be precise, at the table.

Tesco, the largest chain of british supermarkets, has announced that a series of popular food products of import are becoming scarce and may the end of everything: there will be no new supplies, says the company, because Unilever, the giant of the power supply and the importer of the products in question, expects to increase prices because of the decline of the pound sterling. The increase in the wholesale purchase would force Tesco to increase its prices of the retail products on the counters of his supermarket. For where there are two possibilities: or the products will disappear or the prices will go up. Unless sterling does not recover the lost ground, but this is an assumption that in the short term in London betting a few.

The list of products affected by the measure is broad and includes the cream spreadable Marmite, of which the subjects of Her Majesty are crazy, the Lipton tea, soups, Knorr, ice cream Magnum, all brand controlled by Unilever. For british citizens it is a shock: the news occupies the front pages of the newspapers and the bulletins of the tv, as if the nation were to give up its culinary traditions. It may be that you do not have to renounce this, if Tesco agree with Unilever on the terms of a price increase: but in that case the british will realize that shopping at the supermarket costs more.

will Rise with inflation. And the cause will be the decline of the pound sterling, which is covered short of Brexit: it increases exports by making them less expensive, but increases the price of imports. To pay, as economists warned from time to time, will be in the first place, the consumers. Not all categories of consumers, high-income, that Tesco don’t make the expenditure, but the middle English, many of whom have voted for Brexit in the conviction that would bring a better future, with fewer immigrants and more benefits for the national population. It is not happening: are the middle classes low to pay the price of the decision to exit from the Eu.

After a momentary recovery of the pound yesterday morning, when the premier Theresa May had used tones more moderate with regard to the negotiations with Brussels (“we’ll try to have the greatest access possible to the common market”), yesterday afternoon, other phrases of the minister for Brexit David Davis have reiterated that the option most likely is a “hard Brexit”, that is an exit not only from the Eu but also from the common market and the british currency has started to lose ground, as it is doing today.

A search of the Financial Times estimated that, in real terms, its value is currently at the lowest level in the last 168 years, since 1847, the therefore lower than during the Wall Street crash of 1929, the Great Depression, the second world war, the exit of Britain from the Ems and the great crash of the global 2007-2008.

And another blow to the morale of the “brexitiani”, after the revelation, coming from the everyday life of the City, that the “divorce” from Brussels will cost the Uk £ 20 billion between balance of previous commitments, the share of collective expense and legal costs. Every morsel of bread smeared with Marmite, now, it might seem a little bitter to the eurosceptic anglo-saxon.

Topics:

brexit

marmite

magnum

unilever

Tesco

sterling

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