Commentary
15% food price increase in a single month
7, January 2022
1 min read
Originally appeared in the Daily FT
Advocata’s Bath Curry Indicator (BCI) , which tracks the monthly changes in the retail price of food, recorded an increase of 15% from November 2021 to December 2021.
Much of this increase is driven by rising prices of vegetables. 100g of Green Chillies at Rs18 increased to Rs 71. This is a 287% increase in just one month. Similarly, prices of Brinjals have increased by 51%, red onions by 40% and beans and tomatoes by 10%.
Overall, since 2019, prices have almost doubled, and compared to December 2020, prices have increased by 37%.
This means that an average family of four, who spent Rs. 1165 weekly on the BCI basket of food items in December 2020 now has to pay Rs 1593 for the same basket of goods just 1 year later.
The BCI tracks the weekly retail prices in the Colombo market of the most commonly consumed food ingredients that might be used in a typical Buth curry meal. The prices are collected from the “Weekly Indicators” that the Central Bank publishes.
The BCI Indicator can be accessed at www.bci.advocata.org.
