KEY POINTS:
Along with this morning's low inflation number, Statistics NZ has released its Food Price Index, which shows a 9.1 per cent hike in food prices for the year to December 2008.
All five "subgroups" that are studied were up during the year.
The biggest movers were:
Grocery food - up 11 per cent
Meat, poultry and fish - up 11.1 per cent
Restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food - up 6.1 per cent
Fruit and vegetables - up 8.7 per cent
Non-alcoholic beverages - up 5.6 per cent
Within these subgroups, higher prices were recorded for:
Ready-to-eat food - up 6.9 per cent
Bread - up 20.2 per cent
Cakes and biscuits - up 14 per cent
Restaurant meals - up 5.2 per cent
But things weren't so bad last month, says Statistics NZ, with prices falling by 0.2 per cent, driven mainly by a 3.9 per cent fall in fruit and vegetable prices.
In December:
Tomatoes - down 48.4 per cent.
Broccoli - down 45.3 per cent.
Lettuce - down 17.7 per cent.
Apples - up 22.1 per cent
Kiwifruit - up 27.8 per cent.
Bread - up 3.7 per cent
Cakes and biscuits - up 2.2 per cent
HERALD ONLINE
