Pictures: Instagram/Woolworths
South African shopping retailer, Woolworths, has been trending since Wednesday morning on social media after actor and television presenter Nico Panagio ‘parted ways’ with them due to increasing food prices.
“Dear @WOOLWORTHS_SA been wonderful having you around – great quality (most of the time) however since you keep putting your prices up (weekly it seems), you’re gonna see us less & less. Thought I should tell you since we’ve been in a trading relationship for so very long,” Panagio tweeted on Tuesday.
Panagio’s tweet was barely posted when Mzansi took to the comments section of his post to air their grievances about the store’s outrageous prices.
While many Tweeps commented that Woolworths is not the only retailer to have increased their prices so dramatically over the last couple of weeks, others mentioned specific product price hikes that they simply just can’t live with any longer.
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This cured sausage treat is very similar to drywors, a South African favourite, but South Africans are not happy about having to fork out R174.99 for a 400g pack at Woollies.
Twitter user Nomaswazi Hlope complained that these delicious treats went up by R25 in the matter of about two weeks.
Pieter van den Berg commented that he too would be parting ways with the store as long life milk used to cost R72 for 6 cartons, it then increased to R79, then R89 and now he has to fork out a whopping R111 for milk.
While it was reported in November 2022 that the price of the average household food basket increased by 2.3% in a month – from R4 219.48 to R4 317.56 – and by more than R400 (or 10.2%) from a year ago, there is light at the end of the dark tunnel.
South African’s aren’t the only ones upset by increasing food prices. American rapper and songwriter Cardi B also took to Twitter on Tuesday, to complain about how expensive groceries have become.
“Naaaaaa grocery shopping prices are ridiculous right now. You might as well eat outside!” the star Tweeted.
Hopefully with the petrol and diesel price having decreased on Wednesday, consumers can expect some relief on their monthly grocery bill.
Woolworths told The Citizen on Thursday morning that while they strive to keep their price increases to an absolute minimum, there are circumstances, often outside of their control, that have an impact on price adjustments.
“We will only accept a price adjustment as a last resort after exploring all avenues to prevent one. Based on our long-term relationships with our partners, we work as a collective to best understand how we mitigate price increases.
“Additionally, we track thousands of industry prices on a weekly basis to ensure Woolworths remains competitive. Several independent market price surveys on the everyday basket of items conducted in 2022 reaffirms our commitment to price, quality and value for our customers,” the retailer said in a statement issued on Thursday morning.
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