Rising food prices sees inflation reach 7-month high

This was up from 3% in September.

Stats SA said the unexpected rise in consumer inflation was driven by food, non-alcoholic beverages, housing and utilities.

“Consumer inflation hit a seven-month high of 3,3% in October, driven largely by rising prices in food and non-alcoholic beverages. This is the biggest annual rise since the first full month of lockdown in April,” said Stats SA’s Patrick Kelly.

“The monthly increase in October was 0,3%, edging up from the 0,2% recorded in both September and August. Prices in the food and non-alcoholic beverages category jumped by 1,4% on average between September and October, leading to a 5,4% annual increase.” 

Kelly says the increase in food and beverage prices is the biggest since 2017. 

“This is the biggest annual rise for this category since September 2017 when the country was emerging out of severe drought. All food categories recorded above headline increase in October with the exception of cereal.

“In most of these cases, there have been large increases in producers’ prices over the past few months. There was a sizeable gap in the inflation rate for non-alcoholic beverages, 6,1% for hot drinks and 1,7% for cold beverages.”