Kate Hawkesby: Groceries aren't getting cheaper anytime soon

I’ve been obsessed with grocery prices this year – I mean, haven’t we all? Anyone who does the shopping knows what a shock it can be when you see the prices of some things literally quadruple right in front of you.  

I have an ongoing debate with the person in our household who does not do the groceries about this. His solution is: if you don’t want to pay $20 for blueberries, shop around. Now, that’s all well and good if you have lots of time on your hands and all day to trawl through supermarkets and greengrocers all over the city, but most of us don’t.  

You’ve also got to ask yourself how much you want to be inconvenienced by the whole experience, how long you want to sit in traffic for, and how much money you’re actually spending on petrol driving around all these places.  

But if you do shop around, you'll see the disparities. The other day for example, a stick of celery was 4 different prices at 4 different places. $3.49 at Pak n’Save, $3.99 at Fruit World, $5.79 at New World, Countdown... $6.99! For a stick of celery you can get at half the price at Pak n’Save. 

Now when you look at it like that – it’s hair raising and a bit of a no brainer... maybe we should shop around. But you can’t do half your groceries somewhere, a few somewhere else, then go somewhere else for your broccoli and celery can you? Do you? I’d love to know how many people do do that.  

I actually did find blueberries the other day down to the bargain price of $10.00 a punnet, having been $20 a punnet at Farro the other day, so a whole 10 dollar difference, but still way too high in my opinion. And yes, don’t text me telling me to buy frozen ones, or grow my own, I’m talking retail prices here on fresh stuff.  

Anyway Infometrics data shows food prices have again increased last month by 6.6%. Groceries went up 7.5% in July and 8.3% in June, so technically the trend is downwards, but as Infometrics Brad Olsen warned, our groceries aren’t getting cheaper anytime soon. We’re still paying way too much for groceries basically, as any of us who’ve recently travelled overseas and compared, knows full well.  

And for all those who like to message me about buying frozen, well interestingly, frozen foods ‘saw the largest monthly increase in supplier costs and have increased on an annual basis more than produce.’ Ouch. That used to be the cheaper way to go, now it’s not.  

And here’s the other rub, Brad Olsen said he, ‘worries the "new normal" might be more intense inflation than what New Zealand is used to: “when we've looked at the latest data... there are some areas where there's a little bit more pressure than we'd like to see, “ he said he’s, "still worried that ... that sort of new normal might still be more intense inflation than we've previously been accustomed to."  

So that’s unfortunate isn’t it. I mean try as we might, we can’t seem to stop the inflation juggernaut continuing to come right at us, and it looks like it’s going to keep smacking us in the face for a while yet. 

Kate Hawkesby is a journalist and broadcaster who hosts the Early Edition show on Newstalk ZB.