{"id":706512,"date":"2023-07-24T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=706512"},"modified":"2023-07-24T16:20:24","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T14:20:24","slug":"grocery-items-on-the-chopping-block-for-cash-strapped-south-africans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/706512\/grocery-items-on-the-chopping-block-for-cash-strapped-south-africans\/","title":{"rendered":"Grocery items on the chopping block for cash-strapped South Africans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amid the challenging cost-of-living crisis in 2023, many South Africans are looking at things they can cut back on to stretch their budgets, and the grocery basket is no exception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to DebtBusters\u2019 second annual Money Stress Tracker<\/a>, three out of four South Africans feel money stress, which has a serious effect on home and work life and on health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tracker looks at how financial stress affects other aspects of South African\u2019s lives, with over 35,000 respondents to the 2023 survey, which is used as a representative sample of South African consumers who are not in debt counselling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report noted that short-term concerns were the main reason for stress, with half of respondents saying that running out of money before the month-end was their biggest concern, despite it decreasing from 52% in 2022 to 50% in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost a quarter of the respondents (21%) noted inflation and living costs as the main financial concern, while this was also the main concern for South Africans earning a monthly salary of between R20,000 and R35,000 (23%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the current tight economic conditions, South Africans have what they spend on groceries closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get an idea of the categories that have been most impacted, TrendER\/InfoQuest – an online research company – asked consumers which categories of groceries they have cut back on spending since the start of 2023 (over six months).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the survey, approximately one in two consumers have cut back on snacks, biscuits, sweets, and desserts, with alcoholic beverages and meat\/chicken\/fish in 2nd and 3rd, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fruit and vegetables and pastas\/rice are the least affected categories, although about one in five South Africans had reduced their spending on these categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The graph below highlights what grocery items South Africans cut back on.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The data presented above is in line with Stats SA’s latest inflation figures<\/a> for South Africa, as Sugar, sweets, and desserts climbed from 11.9% in May to 16.4% in June 2023 \u2013 the highest reading for the category since June 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA noted annual increases for brown sugar (up 17.4%), white sugar (up 17.1%) and chocolate slabs (up 16.2%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the annual inflation rate for alcoholic beverages and tobacco increased from 5.9% in May to 6.1% in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wine inflation grew from 9.1% in May to 9.4% in June, whilst beer inflation also rose from 4.7% to 5.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some good news for food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annual inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) slowed for the third month in a row, dropping from 11.9% in May to 11.0% in June, albeit still outside the target range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some categories saw an increase in prices, several foods and NAB components recorded lower inflation rates in June 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prices for oils and fats decreased for the tenth successive month, with the index dropping by 9.5% in the 12 months to June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average price of a 750 ml bottle of sunflower oil dropped from R43.97 price tag in June 2022 to R35.57 in June 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annual transport inflation also significantly dropped from 7.0% in May to 1.8% in June, which was mainly due to the softer fuel prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fuel index also declined by 8.3% when comparing June 2023 compared to June 2022, with the monthly change also seeing a 3.1% decrease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: Crisis for domestic workers in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many South Africans are reducing their expenses on various food categories to make their monthly budgets last longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":706540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[7530,17460,853],"class_list":["post-706512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-inflation","tag-infoquest","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706512"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706580,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706512\/revisions\/706580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}