Essential Food Pricing Monitoring Report – March 2024

The latest inflation figures show that food inflation reached 5.1% in March 2024, which is the lowest rate in food inflation since September 2020. This low food inflation figure follows a period when food inflation was significantly higher than overall inflation leading to immense pressure on household budgets. 2. Numerous actors and costs throughout food value chains have an impact on prices. Food value chains remain vulnerable to existing pressures stemming from load-shedding and logistics disruptions, which as we have previously noted, are likely to be slowing the rate at which easing input costs are translating into lower prices for consumers. Challenges with water in several municipalities alongside the El Nino effect have emerged as a new risk to stable food prices. The recent disruption in the poultry value chain due to the outbreak of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (avian flu) in April 2023 in South Africa has added to the cost pressures of the poultry sector and had a significant effect on the retail price of eggs in subsequent months. Early-warning system methodology 3. The role of market power in the recent inflationary episode continues to gain attention from international economic organizations, governments, and regulators. This has led to new investigative techniques such as the early warning system developed by Consumers International – a membership organization for consumer groups around the world – with technical support from the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP). In this edition of the EFPM report, we include this system alongside our usual monitoring data throughout the value chain for selected essential food items. The system has been applied to essential food items in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana and we now apply it to the last 6 months of data for South Africa.