Food basket: September prices decreases, but still higher than 2020

September’s food basket prices have decreased but are still higher than a year ago, according to a monthly survey done by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group.

The average cost of the basket declined by 0.5% compared to the basket for August, but the average cost increased by 9.4% compared to September 2020.

The Household Affordability Index tracks food price data from 44 supermarkets and 30 butcheries in low-income areas in Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg and Springbok. It shows that the average cost of the household food basket was R4,219.48, a R21.64 decrease from the R4,241.11 consumers paid in August.

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Food basket increased year-on-year

On the other hand, the average cost of the basket increased by R361.14 from R3,856.34 in September 2020 to R4,219,48 in September 2021. Although the latest Consumer Price Index for August 2021 indicates that headline Inflation is 4.9%, with food inflation at 7.4%, the survey’s data tends to run higher because it only includes foods typically bought by low-income households.

The basket of foods surveyed is therefore much smaller and only prices from supermarkets and butcheries that target the low-income market within a limited geographical area are tracked.

However, the trends in food inflation and the food basket consistently show an upward trend in higher food price inflation.

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Food basket decreases smaller than increases in August

The high in August was partly caused by the unrest in July in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, but the price decreases in Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg were far less than the spikes recorded in August:

• The Johannesburg food basket declined by only 2% (R88.60) in September, after increasing by 3.4% (R143.27) in August.
• The Durban food basket declined by even less, 0.4% (R17.55), in September 2021, after increasing by 3.9% (R161.60) in August.
• The Pietermaritzburg basket only declined by 0.4% (R14.70), after increasing by 3.2% (R128.33) in August.
• The price of the food basket increased marginally for Cape Town and Springbok in September.
• Marginal increases were evident on the prices of rice, samp, potatoes, chicken and beef offal, fish, butternut, spinach, pilchards, apples, oranges and polony.

The group worries that the price of the basket of 17 foods, which should ordinarily be affordable and found in every household, which includes maize meal, rice, flour, sugar, sugar beans, oil, bread, onions, potatoes, chicken portions, salt, stock, soup and tea is still relatively very high. In September this basket of core foods cost R2,278.90 and the price is R213.19 or 10.3% higher than it was a year ago.

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Unemployment means less money for food

These prices are also worrisome in a time when unemployment levels have increased, with the expanded unemployment rate for Black South Africans at 48.7% and 10,714,000 black South Africans unemployed.

“As the numbers of unemployed workers increase, we are required to look at how many people are actually employed and how much these workers earn, because workers must now support more people on their wages. Currently, 11.3 million Black South Africans are employed, with about half of them earning the national minimum wage or lower,” the group says.

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National minimum wage also inadequate

The national minimum wage for a general worker in September 2021 was R3,643.92. Transport to work and back costs a worker an average of R1,260 and electricity an average of R731.50. After paying these two expenses, workers are left with only R1,652.42 for all other household expenses.

Statistics South Africa also released its updated National Poverty Lines that indicate that the Food Poverty Line is R624 per person per month, with the lower-bound Poverty Line at R890 and the upper-bound Poverty Line at R1,335.

As only one person works in most black households, this one wage must support an average of 4.3 persons. If all the money left after paying for transport and electricity is allocated to food, only R384,28 is available per family member, a terrifying prospect as this amount is 38% below even the lowest poverty line.

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Warning of Food Poverty Line

The group warns that we should not dismiss the warning of the updated Food Poverty Line that poverty and inequality is getting worse.

“We have a staggering unemployment crisis as well as a low-baseline wage crisis. The introduction of the national minimum wage has shifted neither the unemployment trajectory nor the low-baseline wage crisis.

“Instead, because of its poverty-level value which only allows families to secure survivalist consumption expenses, it has deepened poverty and inequality while doing nothing to boost demand for other goods and services in the economy and thereby not creating jobs.”

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Child Support Grant less than Food Poverty Line

The Child Support Grant of R460 per child per month, including the emergency Covid 19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant of R350, is now 26% to 44% below the Food Poverty Line.

While the Food Poverty Line is adjusted annually based on the Consumer Price Index’s food inflation figures, the Child Support Grant  is seemingly adjusted according to the whims of the state.

The CSG is pegged far below the actual cost required to feed a child properly, suggesting that the key instrument to directly support our children and reduce poverty and inequality in South Africa is slowly marginalised and perhaps abandoned by South Africa’s leaders, the group says.

“It seems to us that we are now in danger of losing a key instrument in reducing poverty and inequality among 30 million black South Africans who live in desperate poverty and for whom the last 27 years of democracy has yielded far too little improvement.”