KEY POINTS:
Stock up for your Christmas feasts now - food prices are down.
Lower prices for fruit and vegetables were behind the overall decrease in food costs of 0.3 per cent last month, Statistics New Zealand said yesterday.
The group was down 6 per cent, driven by lower prices for lettuce (50.7 per cent) and tomatoes (24.9 per cent).
These decreases were partly offset by higher prices for potatoes (20.6 per cent).
Higher prices for meat, poultry and fish - up 2.4 per cent last month - also put pressure on the food price index.
The main contributors were beef, up 5.4 per cent, and prepared meats and smallgoods, up 6 per cent.
Prices for grocery foods were up 0.6 per cent, mainly due to higher prices for bread (3.2 per cent), which were offset by lower prices for cheddar cheese (4 per cent).
For the year to October, food prices rose 9.9 per cent.
All five food groups rose in price: grocery food (11.9 per cent), meat, poultry and fish (11 per cent), fruit and vegetables (12.5 per cent), restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food (6.4 per cent), and non-alcoholic beverages (4.7 per cent).
Higher prices were recorded for cheddar cheese (39.2 per cent) and potatoes (41.7 per cent).
