The cost of eating healthy rose much faster than the alternatives in 2021, as lockdowns pressed households to eat-at-home more

Food is becoming more scarce.  

It’s less economic to produce food - more profit in other activities like farming Pinus / Carbon credits.  

I'm surprised it's only in the 4's

more than half of all Russian fruit and veg is produced in household gardens and small homesteads -despite the climate-   for most people in New Zealand -- growing some if not a large amount of your own produce is a possibility --  and as well as the simple economic benefits, there are a wide ranging - climate change with no food miles, better quality produce 0 less use of fertilizers - the Mental Health benefits of managing your own garden and connecting with nature - and the family benefits of having children and my case grand children helping out

time to change 

I wonder if the supermarkets are annoyed at the prospective Commerce Commission measures, getting in first, making hay while they can and moving prices as high as they can to preserve high prices when the government does act.  (If they act; or will they just sit around passively like they do with every other major issue?)

Basic necessity of life....Housing has gone beyond.......now is the turn of food.......

Also frightening to see the suggestion the other day that supermarkets shouldn't offer any discount prices so as to dampen possible panic buying ahead of an Omicron-fueled supply shortage.  When prices go up for whatever reason, that always seems to become the new benchmark. Plus, we probably haven't seen the full effect of high fuel prices and a falling Kiwi dollar.

Raising interest rates will help lower food prices down; the less people buy food, food becomes cheaper.

I heard that two of the largest corporate tomato growers didn't plant their summer crops this year due to low prices and shortages of labour to pick them. Less crop = fewer tomatoes = higher prices. May be an opportunity for the owner operator growers with small unheated glasshouses and poly tunnels to make a bit of money for a change.

Imagine making $60k or less. Yikes.

The CPI will be through the roof this quarter. Food up 4.5%, petrol up 25% (from about $2.00/l in Jan 21 to about $2.50 currently) just to name a couple. OCR rising, so mortgage payments will increase significantly. It's going to be a tough year for many households.

Beware of buying meat or chicken these days with a view to keeping it in the fridge (not the freezer) until using it closer to the 'best before date'.

From my experiences over the Covid period the longer you keep it in the fridge the more chance it will 'go off' even if it's not yet reached its 'best before' date.

So I would recommend that it's best to buy meats or chicken with as long a 'best before date' as possible...say a week or so ahead but then use it that day or the next at the outside.

I have had to trudge back to either Countdown or P'N'Save half a dozen times in the last six months or so to return stuff that 'went off' well before the 'expiry date'.  Even my local butcher sold me (surely knowingly) some rotten mince that was already 'off'...but feeling sorry for the small businessman in general I didn't take it back...I just never bought off him again.

With meat or chicken being NZ-grown products one would have thought the retailer could buy fresh, but obviously not so.   Supermarkets are privileged in that they were allowed to stay open thru Covid, so why aren't they selling fresh?