Food prices rose 1.3% in the month of June but fell 2% in the year to June, the largest annual decline since the monthly series started 50 years ago.The rise for last month followed falls of 0.7% in May and 0.5% in April.Publishing the data today, Statist
Food prices rose 1.3% in the month of June but fell 2% in the year to June, the largest annual decline since the monthly series started 50 years ago.
The rise for last month followed falls of 0.7% in May and 0.5% in April.
Publishing the data today, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) said food prices had peaked in July 2009, having risen 16.6% in the two years up to that point.
The fall of 2% in food prices in the year to June was the largest fall since the monthly series started in 1960. In the year to September 1957 the food group of the quarterly consumers price index had fallen 2.4%.
Fruit and vegetable prices fell 9.2% in the past year, the largest annual fall since that series started in 1999.
The meat, poultry and fish category was down 3.9% for the year, and grocery food was down 1.4%, SNZ said.
The annual fall in grocery food prices was also the largest since the series started in 1999, and included potato crisps down 10.8%, but fresh milk rose 4.4%, cheddar cheese lifted 11.1%, and butter added 27.6%.
For the month of June, the fruit and vegetable subgroup rose 9.3%, with the meat, poultry and fish group up 2.7%.
Among individual items tomatoes were up 44.8% in the month, lettuce rose 77.3%, and cucumber gained 79.6%. Porterhouse/sirloin beef steak lifted 14.3%, rebounding from May when extensive discounting led to a 16.2% fall.
Higher vegetable prices were usual in winter, and more than half the green vegetables monitored for the food price index recorded double-digit price rises in June, SNZ said.
