Eat more fruit, veg & red meat.
Market Morsel
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released their December quarter 2022 consumer price index figures today (25th Jan) and the data shows some favourable price moves for consumers of fruit, vegetables and red meat. Across the main food categories reported vegetable prices saw the biggest decline, down 10.2% from the September quarter figures.
Fruit prices also eased, coming off 2.9% over the final quarter of 2022. The fall in the cost of lamb nearly matched the price easing seen for the fruit category with lamb prices down by 2.5%, good timing to put some lamb on the BBQ for Australia Day. Meanwhile beef saw just a marginal easing of 0.3%, but at least it wasn’t a price rise.
Sadly, cheese priced continued to climb over the December quarter, up by 6.4% from the previous quarter. It’s nearly too much to come-and-bear for this cheese lover.
With the final quarter of 2022 released we can assess the overall annual food inflation seen for last year. Despite their prices easing over the December quarter vegetable prices still saw the largest annual price gains, up by 12.6%. Milk pricing took out second place for price rises, with an increase of 10.9%. While coffee/tea and beef battled it out for third costliest price gains in 2022 up by 10.0% and 9.8%, respectively. Pork was impacted least by inflationary pressures, with prices up by just 4.0% over 2022.
