Dry fruits become a lavish commodity

Islamabad : Dry fruits as the most popular and consumed delight of the winter season have become a lavish commodity for the people due to the increasing rates during the prevailing price hike situation.

The majority of the citizens especially those belonging to the low and middle-income groups are finding it difficult to buy their daily eatables like vegetables, fruits, wheat flour, etc. due to the price hike situation, what to talk about dry fruits? The nutritional benefits of dry fruits cannot be ignored when the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic was badly affecting people with weak immune systems.

Asim Khan, a dry fruits seller at Blue Area, said the price of dry fruits has increased along with inflation.

"Selling dry fruits is the only source of income for me and it would be difficult to feed my children and run household expenditures, if I wouldn’t earn maximum profit", he said.

“The trend of offering discounts on special occasions is no more limited to the clothes, food items, and other accessories of daily life but also being adopted by sellers like me to attract buyers due to its high price,” Asim Khan added. Asim Khan said he sells almonds (without shell) at Rs1900 per kg, Pine nut at Rs6,500 per kg, Walnut (without shell) at Rs1,800, Pistachio for Rs2,300, dry apricot for Rs1,000, dried figs for Rs1,400 and Raisin for Rs900 and cashews for Rs2,300. Sadaf Naz, a customer at a dry fruits shop at Karachi Company said, “it was my routine from the last many years to buy the whole stock of dry fruits especially almonds and walnuts for the season.” But now due to the exorbitant rates of dry fruits and limited purchasing capacity amid the prevailing price hike situation, it is not possible to buy the most wanted nutritional dry fruits which are good for the health. Amina Saleh, a housewife said, “It seems that dry fruits will become a commodity of a certain segment of society that would be able to afford to buy these.”

She said earlier we were habitual of eating dry fruits with green tea daily but now we cannot afford to buy these due to surging rates. Saleem Khan, a regular customer of dry fruits at Aabpara Market said every kind of dry fruit has its own nutritional value like almonds are good for the eyes and walnuts for the brain.

It is surprising that many of the dry fruits in spite of local production are costly and out of reach of a common man.