South African year-on-year (y-o-y) food and non-alcoholic beverage (NAB) inflation declined again in May, the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) has highlighted. It was 1.9% during that month, compared with 2.9% in April. South African Consumer Price Index (CPI) y-o-y headline inflation in May was 4.5% (which was an increase over the April figure of 4%). Food and NAB inflation contributed 8.9% of the y-o-y CPI headline inflation in May. (All these figures are from Statistics South Africa.) Y-o-y food and NAB inflation is thus trending down, while CPI headline inflation is trending up.
The food category with the highest y-o-y inflation in May was meat, at 7.3%. This was followed by NAB, at 4.9%, and then fish and seafood (3.6%), sugar (2.4%), oils and fats (1.7%), and dairy and eggs (0.9%). Cereals saw deflation of -1.4%, while the figure for vegetables was -6% and for fruits and nuts -8.5%.
However, within these categories, inflation varied widely from product to product. For example, within the meat category, the highest y-o-y inflation was for (in BFAP’s order) beef (offal, mince, sirloin, T-bone, fillet, rump) with inflation for these products ranging from 8.3% to 12.9%; pork (chops, fillet, ham, bacon) with a range from 9.1% to 19.4%; mutton and lamb offal, leg, and stew (7.3% to 13.5%); frozen but not individually quick frozen chicken portions (8.5%); boerewors (14.6%); and polony (8.2%).
