Support our sponsors:

NZX 50 Index	4611.96	2.40
S&P/ASX 200	5191.20	0.00
Dow Jones Industrials	14839.80	21.00

Twitter

Facebook

RSS

Cheaper eating in February

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Wednesday 13th March 2002

Text too small?

A 6.3% drop in fresh vegetable prices in February helped to lower the food price index by 0.5% for the month.

Statistics New Zealand says the overall drop was mainly due to lower prices for a wide range of grocery food items and a fall in fresh vegetable prices.

Chocolate took a lead, with prices of boxed chocolates down 10% and chocolate biscuits falling 6.3%. Fruit and vegetable prices fell by 1.7%.

"This follows a rise of 15.2% in fresh vegetables in January 2002, largely the result of difficult growing conditions in many parts of the country," Statistics NZ says.

Meat, fish and poultry prices also fell in February, recording a decrease of 0.2%, driven by falls of 1.9% in lamb prices and 0.8% in poultry prices. These were partly offset by an increase of 0.6% in beef prices.

Restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food prices rose by 0.4%, with hot pizza prices jumping 2% for the month.

On an annual basis food prices rose 4.5% in the year ended February, the first time that the annual has been less than 5% since a rise of 4% in the year to January 2001.

Meat, fish and poultry prices rose by 11.2% for the year while fruit and vegetable prices fell by 4.4%.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.