Inflation <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nSouth Africans have been battling high levels of inflation over the last year, with the annual consumer price inflation quickening to 5.6% in February 2024 from 5.3% in January <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inflation for food & NAB slowed to 6.1% in February. Most categories recorded lower annual rates, except for hot beverages and oils & fats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stats SA said the impact of rising fuel prices was evident in the data. The transport category registered an annual increase of 5.4%, driven higher mainly by increases in vehicle and fuel prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite these inflation woes, the majority of the baskets across the retailers showed prices increase well below inflation, with some showing bigger adjustments than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Woolworths\u2019 price change was only 8.7%, well above the average of 2.6%. However, BusinessTech\u2019s local Spar saw prices drop by 3.2% compared to April 2022, while Pick n Pay remained virtually unchanged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PnP (0.1%), Checkers (4.3%) and No Name (2.3%) all recorded price increases well below inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price changes from 2022 to 2023 can be seen below:<\/p>\n\n\n\nStore <\/th> 2023<\/th> 2024<\/th> Diff.<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Woolworths<\/strong><\/td>R812.84<\/td> R883.84<\/td> +8.7%<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>Checkers<\/strong><\/td>R650.84<\/td> R678.84<\/td> +4.3%<\/td><\/tr> Spar<\/strong><\/td>R732.84<\/td> R708.84<\/td> -3.2%<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>PnP<\/strong><\/td>R707.01<\/td> R707.84<\/td> +0.1%<\/td><\/tr> No Name<\/strong><\/td>R650.84<\/td> R665.84<\/td> +2.3%<\/td><\/tr> Average <\/strong><\/td>R710.87<\/strong><\/td>R729.04<\/strong><\/td>+2.6%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\nDespite the positive shift in food prices year-on-year, there are some red flags for food inflation moving forward as South Africa faces drought conditions and the risk of higher food inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) chief economist Wandile Sihlobo noted that South Africans should appreciate that the drought is unlikely to result in broad increases in food prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The risk mainly lies in white maize due to notable crop failures in the western regions of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Current estimates put yields down 25% year-on-year. However, globally, yields are expected to be up 6%, mainly driven by yellow maize. The white maize issue is mainly a South Africa and Southern Africa issue, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But aside from this, products that are playing favourably for South Africa are wheat and rice, which the country imports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sihlobo said there are currently ample supplies of these, and prices are moderating. The rand exchange rate is the biggest factor in pricing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Methodology <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWe compared white-label branded items at Woolworths, Pick n Pay, Checkers, and Spar in Centurion. Prices were found in-store across stores in Centurion, Gauteng. If items were not available in-store, prices were acquired online or via confirmation from the retailer. Prices were gathered in the second week of April 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nAll or Nothing <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis basket only looks at similar white-label branded items across the five retailers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Pick n Pay, a PnP-branded item would be used if a No Name version of the product was not available and vice versa. This is based on the idea that a shopper would be able to fill a basket of Pick n Pay\u2019s store-branded items in one shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, Spar runs separate franchises, so prices in one store are not always applicable in another store. We thus used the prices at our office\u2019s local Spar in Centurion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quality is not considered <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis comparison only looks at pricing and does not compare the quality of products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Woolworth\u2019s R53.99 chutney may be of superior quality compared to No Name\u2019s R26.99 chutney, these items are compared as they are the house brand options at their respective stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In all cases, the most comparable and cheapest version of the store-branded product was chosen; the only exception was Checker’s white sugar and tuna, where we chose the cheapest alternative as we could not find the price of its house brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As close as possible <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWe did our best to find items in similar quantities across all retailers. However, we did allow for some minor discrepancies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For instance, Woolworths sells Tomato sauce in 565g bottles compared to Pick n Pay\u2019s 700g bottle. However, we counted them as similar items on the basis that a customer always buys a complete product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As ever, when it comes to pricing and shopping: buyer beware<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRead: Toxic cough syrup pulled from shelves in South Africa \u2013 what you need to know<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BusinessTech looked at which retailer has the cheapest basket of house brands in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":308804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-768213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768213","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=768213"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768259,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768213\/revisions\/768259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}