Food Prices have gone up!

The latest Household Affordability Index shows that the average cost of the Household Food Basket increased once more. Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group ‘s latest Household Affordability Index states that families are now paying an average of almost R200 extra per basket since it first began tracking the data five months ago. “The average cost of the Household Food Basket in January 2021 is now at its highest level since the start of the expanded collection in September 2020,” says Mervyn Abrahams, Programme Coordinator at PMBEJD. Guests: Mervyn Abrahams About the Household Affordability Index  The Household Food Basket in the Household Affordability Index is a new basket and has been designed together with women living on low incomes in Johannesburg (Soweto, Alexandra, Tembisa and Hillbrow), Cape Town (Gugulethu, Philippi, Khayelitsha, Delft, Dunoon), Durban (KwaMashu, Umlazi, Isipingo, Durban CBD, and Mtubatuba), and Springbok (in the Northern Cape), and Pietermaritzburg. It includes the foods and the volumes of these foods which women living in a family of seven members (an average low-income household size) tell us they typically try and secure each month. The basket was designed through a pilot project which ran from April 2020 to August 2020. It cannot however be considered the basket for every family living on a low income in each area and for all areas covered. It is however considered a reasonable proxy for a food basket which women identified as including the most important typical foods which most households try and buy each month, given affordability constraints. The Household Food Basket is not nutritionally complete.