Annual food price increase remains at 13-year high of 8.3 percent

Food prices were 8.3 percent higher in September 2022 compared with September 2021, Stats NZ said today.

The annual increase was also 8.3 percent in August 2022, the highest since July 2009.

In September 2022, the annual increase was due to rises across all the broad food categories we measure. Compared with September 2021:

• grocery food prices increased by 7.7 percent
• fruit and vegetable prices increased by 16 percent
• restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food prices increased by 6.9 percent
• meat, poultry, and fish prices increased by 6.7 percent
• non-alcoholic beverage prices increased by 4.8 percent.

Grocery food was the largest contributor to this movement.

"Increasing prices for yoghurt, two-minute noodles, and tomato-based pasta sauce were the largest drivers within grocery food," consumer prices manager Katrina Dewbery said.

The second-largest contributor to the annual movement was fruit and vegetables. The items within this group that influenced this movement the most were capsicums, tomatoes, and broccoli.

Monthly food prices rise 0.4 percent

Monthly food prices were 0.4 percent higher in September 2022 compared with August 2022. After adjusting for seasonal effects, they were up 0.9 percent. Fruit and vegetables fell 0.1 percent, but after seasonal adjustment rose 3.9 percent.

"This seasonal movement for fruit and vegetables indicates that based off previous patterns a larger fall in fruit and vegetables for the September month is more typical," Mrs Dewbery said.

"This helps explain why the overall seasonally adjusted movement is higher than the unadjusted increase."

Non-alcoholic beverages had the largest impact on the 0.4 percent monthly rise. This was led by increases in the cost of large bottled soft drinks (up 3.4 percent), instant coffee (up 5.2 percent), and poured soft drinks for example, at cinemas or fast-food outlets (up 2.2 percent).

The second largest contributor to the overall monthly movement was restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food, which rose by 0.6 percent. This was driven by rises in the price for hamburgers (1.7 percent) and takeaway pizzas (2.0 percent).