Food inflation lowest in 16 years: StatsSA

Statistics South Africa announced on Wednesday the lowest annual inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) declining to 0.9% in July compared to June 2010 when it was 0.7%.

In a statement, StatsSA attributed the lower food inflation rate to cereal products and meat declining in July 2026, with cereal products decreasing annually at 2.0% compared to a 1.5% decrease recorded in June.

Shoppers also experienced some slower inflation for meat which stood at 1.5% (year-on-year) in July compared to the 5.1% increase recorded for June 2026.

“Unprocessed beef products reflected negative annual price changes, with stewing beef at -7.9%, beef steak at -6.1% and beef mince at -5.8%,” said StatsSA in their statement.

“However, several processed meat products recorded an increase, including corned meat (+11.8%), meat patties (+7.8%), russians (+7.7%) and sausages (+6.2%).” StatsSA includes 144 food and beverage products in their CPI basket where they track the price changes for each month, and for July 2026 compared to the previous year, products including tomatoes (+12.5%), hake (+12.0%), and corned meat (11.8%) showed some of the biggest increases compared to July 2025.

The interactive infographic below uses StatSA CPI basket data to show the difference in prices for various products for July 2025 and July 2026 so you can compare how much you paid for the same products in your shopping cart between the two years.