{"id":829623,"date":"2025-06-26T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=829623"},"modified":"2025-06-26T16:18:23","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T14:18:23","slug":"more-pain-for-braai-lovers-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/829623\/more-pain-for-braai-lovers-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"More pain for braai lovers in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African consumers can expect to pay even more to host a braai, with food prices rising sharply in June compared to a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of a marginal increase of 0.1% between May and June 2025, prices in the Braai Index have climbed almost 9% from the same time in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Braai Index, originally developed by Bloomberg, is compiled monthly using pricing data from the Pietermaritzburg Equity Justice and Dignity (PMBEJD) group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It tracks the prices of a selection of essential items typically used for a South African braai, offering a focused view of inflation at the grill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes meat (beef, wors, chicken portions), vegetables (spinach, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, green pepper) and others (samp, maize, curry powder, salt).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the month-on-month index, potatoes (-10.7%) and green peppers (-6.5%) saw sharp price decreases, but these were counterbalanced by increases for beef (+5.3%) and onions (+8.7%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the month-on-month basket was barely changed, increasing only 0.1%. However, this comes from consecutive monthly increases since March 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real jump comes when looking at prices year-on-year, with the basket shooting up 8.9% from June 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one item in the basket dropped in price, and this was only a marginal 0.5% decline in the price of curry powder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All other times increased year-on-year, with carrots, samp, maize, spinach and beef all posting double-digit increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, this overall trend in the index reflects rising food prices as tracked by Stats SA as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest inflation reading for May 2025 showed overall CPI flat at 2.8%, but inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages pushed higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual rate for the category increased from 4.0% in April to 4.8% in May, the highest print since March 2024 when the rate stood at 5.1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Month-on-month index change [+0.1%<\/mark>]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year index change [+8.9%<\/mark>]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meat prices are likely to rise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s inflation data tracks warnings from beef and meat producers in the country that these food items are likely to see prices rise further in the coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s beef industry has been hit by foot and mouth disease, which will impact production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the country could see strong supplies in the medium term due to the closing of exports, in the near term, stock losses may add to price pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of the beef industry, South Africa’s chicken production has been impacted by the collapse of Daybreak Foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state-owned group was key to delivering fresh frozen chicken products to the local market, but it collapsed after years of financial difficulties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operations got so dire that the NSPCA had to intervene, euthanising over 350,000 birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, a May ban on the import of mechanically deboned (MDM) meat from Brazil due to an outbreak of the avian flu will likely add price pressure for many protein products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MDM is used to manufacture polony, viennas, Russians, braai wors, bangers, frozen burgers, meat pies, and corned meat, among other things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the ban on MDM imports from Brazil has been partially lifted, technicalities around certification have delayed the process, meaning production has been idle for more than a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meat producers have warned that this will inevitably lead to food shortages and price increases as the sector moves to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA, meat, especially beef, is a key reason for the rise in food inflation. The annual rate for meat jumped from 3.0% in April to 4.4% in May.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, monthly increases for beef products ranged from 6.2% to 11.9%. In May, notable increases were recorded for beef steak, up 4.5%, stewing beef, up 2.5% and beef mince, up 1.7%. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African consumers can expect to pay even more to host a braai, with food prices rising sharply in June compared to a year ago, and worse to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":829642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[21654,14664,1809],"class_list":["post-829623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-braai-index","tag-pmbejd","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829623","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=829623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829646,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829623\/revisions\/829646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}