Food Lover's Market was the cheapest store to buy a basic grocery basket in the month of February, followed by Woolworths.
This is according to data from Outlierafrica, which looks at in-store prices of the same basket of goods across six major retailers.
Food Lover’s Market ranked as the cheapest store to buy goods from, with the most expensive being SPAR, for the month of February 2023.
The six retailers looked at are, Shoprite, Checkers, Pick n Pay, SPAR, Food Lover’s Market and Woolworths.
The image below shows the retailers ranking:
Spar was R48.04 more expensive to fill up a basic grocery basket when compared to Food Lover’s Market.
The basket is made up of the following items:
- 700g loaf of Albany Superior Sliced White Bread (or store brand)
- 2-litre store brand sunflower oil
- 2.5kg maize meal
- 2.5kg white sugar
- 2-litre milk
- 2kg rice
- 2.5kg flour
- 175g bath soap
- 9-pack of toilet paper
Massmart’s Makro however, says that the same items costs even less when compared to Food Lover’s Market February prices.
Makro shared data with Business Report that showed that the same items costs R359 currently at their stores.
Hazel Shozi, Senior Manager: Communications & PR at Massmart Wholesale, said, “Makro is in the More4Less quarter which was designed to give consumers more bang for their bucks. Getting suppliers onboard and bundling various products to upsell and increase sales. This campaign is so successful that is run quarterly in Makro stores nationally.”
Below is Makro’s current pricing of the items from the grocery basket:
Consumers have been hit hard in recent months, with data showing how the economy contracted in the fourth quarter of last year and many analysts predicting another contraction in the current quarter, which will place the country into a technical recession.
According to Citadel's Chief Economist, Maarten Ackerman, besides load shedding, logistical issues was another main culprit for South Africa’s economic contraction in Quarter Four (Q4) of last year.
There is no doubt that the economy is taking strain from load shedding, and this is paving the way for a technical recession in South Africa, Ackerman said.
He was reacting to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data released by Statistics South Africa, indicating that the country’s GDP contracted by 1.3% in the final quarter of last year, largely due to the economic knock-on effects of the country’s protracted energy crisis.
“Everything is indicating that the first quarter of 2023 will also be negative because of the amount of load shedding we’re seeing at this point in time, coupled with the logistical issues faced in our rails and ports infrastructure. This will give us two consecutive negative quarters which, by definition, is a technical recession,” Ackerman further said.
Hayley Parry, Money Coach and Facilitator at 1Life’s Truth About Money, said: “It looks that there will be a lot more belt-tightening to come when it comes to consumer finances because it looks like we have some turbulence ahead. It feels like we are living inside a roller-coaster as a South African, and our economy is reflecting the same.”
She further said that consumers will see price increases in the coming months.
“The contraction announced on Tuesday was far higher than what economists had predicted. This is not good news as they are already predicting that the current quarter that we are in is not looking good as well, thanks to the rolling blackouts that we as a country are facing,” she said.
Parry further said, “The reality is that this is impacting every aspect of our lives, including the country’s business sector. The cost of producing goods and services is going to increase as businesses have to compensate for not having electricity and pay more for coming up with their own solutions to deal with the energy crisis. Those costs are, unfortunately, being passed on to the consumers.”
BUSINESS REPORT