{"id":846982,"date":"2026-01-05T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=846982"},"modified":"2026-01-05T09:52:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:52:31","slug":"spur-burger-for-r3-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/846982\/spur-burger-for-r3-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Spur burger for R3.35"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Investment expert Schalk Louw highlighted that the price of a Spur burger increased by 9.23% per year over the last 40 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adjusting this price for the change in value-added tax (VAT), this annual price increase is approximately 2% above the Consumer Price Index (CPI) over this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CPI is a key economic indicator that measures the average change over time in the prices paid for a market basket of consumer goods and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This measure tracks inflation and changes in the cost of living, calculated by monitoring price changes in everyday items such as food, housing, and transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louw shared details about the change of a Spur burger, which he jokingly called \u201cburgerflation\u201d, in a social media post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went to Spur for the first time in years this week and ordered the benchmark dish, the Spur Burger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bill came to R119.90, which I paid with a smile. It was the same smile when I paid R3.35 for a Spur burger 40 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tongue-in-cheek post takes South Africans on a nostalgic trip down memory lane to one of the country\u2019s iconic restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it has some economic significance to show how the value of the rand depreciated and how affordable certain products were in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is similar to the Big Mac index, created by The Economist in 1986, which is a lighthearted tool to measure Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between currencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This measure uses the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac as a simple benchmark for a basket of goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It helps assess if a currency is overvalued or undervalued by comparing the price of this popular burger in different countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It suggests that, in theory, exchange rates should adjust so that a McDonald’s Big Mac costs the same everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although this is little more than a fun way to look at Purchasing Power Parity of currencies, it has been enjoying great attention over the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louw\u2019s \u201cburgerflation\u201d, which uses the humble Spur burger as a benchmark, can be seen as a similar fun way to look at the inflation of restaurant food over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Spur menu in 1986 (courtesy of Schalk Louw)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Spur menu in 2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investment expert Schalk Louw highlighted that the price of a Spur burger increased from R3.35 to R119.50 over the last 40 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":846986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[3559,24443,24442,10435,24441,20275],"class_list":["post-846982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-big-mac-index","tag-consumer-price-index-cpi","tag-schalk-louw","tag-spur","tag-spur-burger","tag-value-added-tax-vat-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846982","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=846982"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847124,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846982\/revisions\/847124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}