South Africa’s food prices will continue to rise in coming months, but the increases will be far more moderate than seen in 2023.
This is the view of the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), expressed in its monthly Food Inflation Brief for September 2024.
Food inflation in September was 4.7%, unchanged from the previous month. General inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI) was 3.8%, down from 4.4% in August. After dropping below CPI inflation in March this year, food inflation has now been higher for two months in a row.
This may continue. BFAP says food inflation is expected to remain fairly stable in the short term. It emphasised that this “implies that prices are still expected to rise, but at a consistent rate that is much slower than observed through 2023”.
It thinks there may be further softening of inflation in 2025, but food inflation will be driven by “above inflation labour and electricity cost increases, along with other value chain cost increases”.
