Consumer food price inflation raises alarms for South Africa's vulnerable households

THE Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) has raised concern about the impact on food price following yesterday’s announcement that consumer food price inflation increased to 3.3% in April from 2.2% in March.

- YOGASHEN PILLAY

Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at Agbiz, said this reflected the pass-through of the higher agricultural commodity prices observed at the end of last year and into the start of 2025, particularly with grains. Sihlobo added that in the case of meat, price increases were expected as a response to the slight recovery in consumer demand, which have been highlighting in recent months.

"In the case of vegetables, we see the increases as a reflection of disruptions in field work caused by the excessive rains in recent weeks, which should be a temporary blip," he said.

Sihlobo said that they suspected that the current mild quickening of food price inflation will prevail for much of the year's second and third quarters as the increases in the farm level of some of the key products, such as grains, continued to pass through to the retail level.