{"id":773716,"date":"2024-05-29T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=773716"},"modified":"2024-05-28T16:31:38","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T14:31:38","slug":"how-much-the-price-of-bread-milk-and-eggs-increased-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/773716\/how-much-the-price-of-bread-milk-and-eggs-increased-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"How much the price of bread, milk, and eggs increased in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New data from The Outlier shows how the price of popular food items, including bread, milk, eggs, fruit, chicken, cheese, and chocolate, increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Outlier is an award-winning publication specialising in using data to create public service stories and visualisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their primary focus is on issues that impact people\u2019s lives, such as health, climate, politics, economics, and state services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest issues facing South Africans is food inflation. Many people are stretched financially, and higher food prices make it difficult to make ends meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High interest rates, high inflation, record petrol and diesel prices, and rising electricity costs have put tremendous strain on South African households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistics South Africa\u2019s (Stats SA\u2019s) April 2024 consumer price index, released last week, contained some good news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It showed that food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation continued to trend downward for the fifth consecutive month, to 4.7% year over year in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expected upward pressure on food inflation from the past El Ni\u00f1o season is not significant and is expected to be short-lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanisha Packirisamy, an economist at Momentum Investments, said it was the first time food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation has dipped below 5% since September 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More encouragingly, food inflation decreased to 4.4% year-on-year in April from 4.9% year-on-year in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reduction was broad-based with seven of the nine food categories easing in April,\u201d Packirisamy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meat inflation decreased to 0.5% year-on-year in April from 0.8% year-on-year in March. Bread and cereals inflation also dropped to 4.3% year-on-year in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although still elevated, milk, eggs and cheese inflation moderated to 8.7% year-on-year in April from 10.1% year-on-year in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) expects food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation to ease gradually over the next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It expects it to decline from 6.1% y\/y in the first quarter of 2024 to around the midpoint of the inflation target range from the first quarter of 2025 onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further good news is that the outbreak of animal diseases in South Africa is largely contained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Packirisamy warned that outbreaks are still occurring and, therefore, remain a risk to food inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How food prices changed between 2017 and 2024<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Outlier used consumer prices from Stats SA’s Consumer Price Index between 2017 and 2024 to calculate how prices changed during the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The price of bread increased from R13.41 for a load of white bread to R18.43. The price of 2 litres of full-cream milk increased from R26.06 to R35.95.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The price of 18 eggs increased from R37.17 to R67.41, while a kilogram of cheddar cheese increased from R98.54 to R147.89.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below provides an overview of how South African food prices changed over the last seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food<\/strong><\/td>2017<\/strong><\/td>2024<\/strong><\/td>Change<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Onions (kg)<\/td>R11.06<\/td>R23.79<\/td>115%<\/td><\/tr>
Tomatoes<\/td>R16.04<\/td>R32.39<\/td>102%<\/td><\/tr>
Eggs (18)<\/td>R37.17<\/td>R67.41<\/td>81%<\/td><\/tr>
Cofee (250g)<\/td>R34.83<\/td>R61.99<\/td>78%<\/td><\/tr>
Tea (250g)<\/td>R30.66<\/td>R54.08<\/td>76%<\/td><\/tr>
Potatoes (kg)<\/td>R12.51<\/td>R21.47<\/td>72%<\/td><\/tr>
Rice (kg)<\/td>R18.65<\/td>R31.88<\/td>71%<\/td><\/tr>
Sugar (2.5kg)<\/td>R37.18<\/td>R63.31<\/td>70%<\/td><\/tr>
Chocolate (slab)<\/td>R14.15<\/td>R22.97<\/td>62%<\/td><\/tr>
Cheese (kg)<\/td>R98.54<\/td>R147.89<\/td>50%<\/td><\/tr>
Tuna tin<\/td>R17.24<\/td>R25.52<\/td>48%<\/td><\/tr>
Chicken (kg)<\/td>R43.69<\/td>R63.81<\/td>46%<\/td><\/tr>
Beef mince (kg)<\/td>R71.34<\/td>R103.42<\/td>45%<\/td><\/tr>
Milk (2l)<\/td>R26.06<\/td>R35.95<\/td>38%<\/td><\/tr>
Bread white loaf<\/td>R13.41<\/td>R18.43<\/td>37%<\/td><\/tr>
Bananas (kg)<\/td>R16.33<\/td>R20.46<\/td>25%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How prices changed over the years<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The image below, courtesy of The Outlier, shows how the price of these goods changed over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

New data from The Outlier shows how the price of popular food items, including bread, milk, eggs, fruit, chicken, cheese, and chocolate, increased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":769126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[19921,19920,3745,17955],"class_list":["post-773716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-el-nino","tag-food-inflation","tag-statistics-south-africa","tag-the-outlier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773716","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=773716"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773941,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773716\/revisions\/773941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}