{"id":764587,"date":"2024-03-28T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=764587"},"modified":"2024-03-28T14:11:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T12:11:12","slug":"short-lived-joy-for-braai-lovers-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/764587\/short-lived-joy-for-braai-lovers-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-lived joy for braai lovers in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The price of a traditional South African barbecue rose at a slower pace for a second straight month, suggesting that food costs may cool further before the El Ni\u00f1o weather phenomenon scuppers the downward trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloomberg\u2019s Shisa Nyama Index, an early indicator of where food inflation may be heading, shows the average price of a backyard barbecue rose 1.3% in March from a year earlier, compared with 2.5% in the prior month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Official food inflation slowed for a third straight month in February to 6%, and headline price growth quickened to 5.6%.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onion, cooking oil, carrots, and corn meal prices were the biggest contributors to the decline in the index.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Still, the drop in the gauge may be short-lived. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago said at a monetary policy committee briefing on Wednesday that South Africa is \u201cat a difficult juncture\u201d regarding food prices. Hot and dry weather caused by El Ni\u00f1o may lead food inflation to pick up again, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dry spell that\u2019s persisted across much of the country this year led the government\u2019s Crop Estimates Committee on Tuesday to\u00a0cut\u00a0its outlook for the white corn harvest by 11% to 6.28 million tons, while the overall take that includes the yellow variety is projected at a five-year low of 13.3 million tons.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revised forecasts may mean South Africa will need to import significant amounts of white corn, used to make a staple food, for the first time since 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The central bank\u2019s\u00a0models\u00a0show severe drought conditions could add 10 to 28 percentage points to food inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt looks like the risk to the crops could materialize more than what we thought of last year,\u201d Kganyago said. And as we have seen in the past that poses a risk to food inflation and complicates the disinflation process, he said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kganyago\u00a0reaffirmed\u00a0Wednesday after the MPC maintained its benchmark rate at a 15-year high of 8.25% for a fifth meeting in a row that it will only cut rates when it is confident that inflation is on a sustainable path toward the midpoint of its 3% to 6% target range, where it prefers to anchor expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Shisa Nyama Index crunches data from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group of 14 key ingredients in braais consumed in South African townships.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To compile its survey, the PMBEJD\u2019s data collectors track food prices on the shelves of 47 supermarkets and 32 butcheries that target the low-income market in the greater areas of Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg and the northwestern town of Springbok.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read<\/strong>: Light at the end of the tunnel for South Africa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Braai lovers in South Africa have received a boost for the easter weekend – but there’s trouble around the corner. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":764601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-764587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764587","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764587"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764649,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764587\/revisions\/764649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}