{"id":858876,"date":"2026-05-01T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=858876"},"modified":"2026-04-30T17:23:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:23:40","slug":"most-expensive-province-to-buy-groceries-right-now-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/858876\/most-expensive-province-to-buy-groceries-right-now-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Most expensive province to buy groceries right now in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In April 2026, Johannesburg remains the most expensive city among South Africa\u2019s three major metros for groceries for 10 consecutive months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durban in KwaZulu-Natal has overtaken Cape Town in the Western Cape as the second-most-expensive major metro for the third consecutive month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is according to data from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity (PMBEJD) group, which tracks the cost of a household food basket across the three major provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data is based on \u201con-the-ground\u201d pricing for products across a variety of retailers in major cities, which serve as proxies for the provinces in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PMBEJD report found that while 20 of the 44 tracked food items became cheaper or saw no increases year-on-year, the other 24 experienced price hikes, with seven items seeing double-digit inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s consumer inflation has remained muted at 3.1% in March 2026, up from the 3.0% recorded in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual rate for food & non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) slowed further to 3.6% in March from 3.7% in February and 4.4% in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four of the 11 food & NAB categories are in deflationary territory, including fruits & nuts; vegetables; cereal products; and milk, other dairy products & eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The milk, other dairy products & eggs category recorded its 10th successive month of deflation at -0.5% in March, slightly higher than February\u2019s -0.7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three products are cheaper than a year ago, namely fresh full-cream milk (currently in its 13th month of deflation at -0.4%), powdered milk (-5.5%), and eggs (-6.3%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White rice, porridge, maize meal, basmati rice, instant noodles, brown bread and bread flour are cheaper than in March 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average price for a kilogram of white rice, for example, declined from R29.01 to R27.82 over the 12-month period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meat recorded its second monthly decrease, with beef prices moderating between February 2026 and March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declines were recorded for stewing beef (-4.2%), steak (-2.0%), mince (-1.9%) and offal (-1.5%). Biltong fans can also breathe a sigh of relief, with prices edging lower by 0.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual rate for meat also slowed, easing to 11.6% from 12.2% in February. Beef products registered lower rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most notably, steak retreated from 28.6% in February to 24.1% in March and stewing beef from 26.9% to 22.6%. Pork bucked the trend, increasing from 17.3% to 19.5%. Bacon inflation was also up, from 2.2% to 4.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most expensive city for groceries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As of April 2026, the average cost of a household food basket in South Africa, comprising 44 essential items that reflect typical purchasing patterns, reached R5,452.09. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a 0.6% annual increase of R31.79 compared to April 2025. Month-on-month, however, the basket price increased by R123.56 compared to March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a breakdown of costs in each city shows that the change in food prices is greater in some areas than others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April 2026, the household food basket cost R5,664.94 in Johannesburg, a 1.9% increase of R105.48 from the previous year. This is also R79.28 more than the basket price of R5,585.67 in March.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joburg\u2019s basket price surpassed the national average by R212.85, making Johannesburg the most expensive metro for groceries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town remains the cheapest of the cities for groceries, recording further decreases compared to the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town\u2019s food basket, recorded at R5,167.96, decreased by R148.60 (2.8%) from R5,316.56 in April 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durban\u2019s food basket increased by R159.98 (3.0%) from R5,267.26 in March 2026 to R5,427.24 in April 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year, the Durban household food basket increased by only R2.02 from R5,425.23 in April 2025 to R5,427.24 in April 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Basket comparison for April 2026<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the most expensive major city in South Africa to buy food in as of the end of April 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":858880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[9741,25155,1809],"class_list":["post-858876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-food","tag-pietermaritzburg-economic-justice-and-dignity-pmbejd-group","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858876","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\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858876"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858901,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858876\/revisions\/858901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}