2009 saw major supermarket prices rising at a more moderate pace than the year before.
This was borne out in the Consumer Council's annual supermarket price survey of a basket of 200 top-selling items in the three supermarket chains of CRCVanguard, ParknShop and Wellcome.
The aggregate average price of the basket comprising predominantly daily food and necessities went up by 3% in 2009, compared with a double digit increase of 12.6% in 2008.
For the whole of last year, the Composite Consumer Price Index was on average 0.5% higher than it was in the preceding year.
For comparison, the 200 items in the basket surveyed were grouped into 12 main categories and 40 sub-categories. All but 2 of the 12 categories recorded an upward trend ranging from 0.8% to 8.4% in aggregate average price.
The categories with the most price increases ranging from 7% to 8.4% were: milk powder/baby products, dairy/yoghurt products, and candies/snacks.
A breakdown of the price levels of the 200 items showed that 119 of the items were recorded with increases while 71 with decreases and 10 remained unchanged.
The sub-category product groups that recorded most increases were: cheese (24.7%), nuts (10.5%), milk powder (10.3%) and packaged rice (9.2%).
Cheese and milk powder had both been on a double-digit rise in aggregate average price in the past 2 years. Cheese rose by 12.2% in 2008 and 24.7% in 2009. Whereas milk powder went up by 11.7% in 2008 and 10.3% in 2009.
9 sub-categories, on the other hand, recorded decreases in price ranging from 0.6% to 9.7%, notably with wine (9.7%) and edible oil (4.8%).
The aggregate average prices of wine had been on a downward trend for the second consecutive year.
The product that remained unchanged in price was butter.
In 2008, the top 3 groups recorded with significantly high aggregate average price increases of over 30% were: edible oil, canned meat and packaged rice.
In 2009, only the aggregate average price of packaged rice continued its rise considerably by 9.2%, and in particular Australian rice, 3 out of 5 were found to increase from 20.1% to 31.5%.
The aggregate average price of canned meat rose slightly by 2.1% in 2009. Edible oil, on the other hand, fell by 4.8% in aggregate average price.
The annual supermarket price survey was based on the actual scan data of 200 most commonly purchased items in the three supermarket chains to analyse the price trend of 2009 in comparison to 2008.
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