Annual food price increase remains high at 6.4 percent

Food price inflation remained high in April 2022 following a 10-year high last month, Stats NZ said today.

Food prices were 6.4 percent higher in April 2022 compared with April 2021. This was due to rises across all the broad food categories we measure:

• grocery food prices increased 6.4 percent
• restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food prices increased 5.3 percent
• fruit and vegetable prices increased 9.4 percent
• meat, poultry, and fish prices increased 8.1 percent
• non-alcoholic beverage prices increased 2.8 percent.

Grocery food was the largest contributor to this movement, mainly due to increases in the price of cheddar cheese, milk, and eggs.

"Inflation of food prices has generally been increasing since a low of 0.5 percent in the year to March 2021," consumer prices manager Katrina Dewbery said.

"This followed a period from October 2011 when food price annual inflation was mostly under 2.5 percent."

Ready-to-eat food and restaurant meals see monthly rise, while fruit and vegetables drop

Monthly food prices were 0.1 percent higher in April 2022 compared with March 2022.

This was mainly due to a rise in prices for restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food, and a fall in prices for fruit and vegetables.

The higher prices in restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food coincided with the minimum wage increase, which increased from $20.00 to $21.20 on 1 April. Restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food had the largest monthly increase in over a decade, up 1.4 percent. This was mainly due to higher prices for dine-in lunches, hamburgers, and coffee.

"We often see price rises in restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food following an increase in the minimum wage," Mrs Dewbery said.

"Even so, the last time restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food had a monthly rise of this scale was following the increase in GST to 15 percent in October 2010, when there was a 1.9 percent increase."

This rise was offset by fruit and vegetables, which fell 3.1 percent from March 2022 to April 2022, mainly due to falls in the price of broccoli, lettuce, and kiwifruit.

After removing regular seasonal impacts, food prices rose 0.1 percent. This means that the price increase in the unadjusted series was unchanged by typical seasonal effects from March to April.