La Quattro restaurant owner Manjot Singh said price rises, but also the availability of certain products, were causing him headaches.
"Everything's gone up, it's going up again and again every day."
When suppliers were out of certain products, Singh said he would go to the local supermarkets but that meant paying more.
Singh said he increased prices about two months ago, but going much higher would drive customers away.
"We are losing a bit of money now."
There were some signs that prices were coming down for certain key ingredients for the Mexican restaurant.
Tomatoes were about $7 a kilo whereas previously they were double that, Singh said, while avocados were down to 50 cents each - "which is great for us".
High-Kut Bistro owner Kaiming "Kelvin" Huang said price rises in dairy, meat and vegetable products were hurting his business.
He said he felt like prices were up much more than the 7.2 per cent figure released by Stats NZ.
"I feel like it's way more than that.
"I think everyone's got a little [pain] going on."
High-Kut Bistro has a lamb rack dish and Huang said at the start of the year he was paying $24 a kilogram before GST for lamb, but by July that was about $39 per kg.
"All I can do is just balance that myself to put the price up, just by a dollar or two.
"I think for us we are lucky because most of the people that come to us, they are very understanding," he said
Huang said in places such as Wellington, or even Palmerston North, there were restaurants selling a dish similar to his lamb rack for more than $40 while he kept the price below that.
He said he wasn't making big losses yet but as prices continued to rise he would consider cutting staff hours and working more himself.
The main driver for the 7.2 per cent annual inflation compared with September last year was housing and household utilities.
Rising prices for construction, rentals for housing and local authority rates were all pushing up prices.
Hardship calls
Whanganui Budget Advisory Service (WBAS) manager Sandy Fage said little had changed in the cost-of-living struggles many families were having since the Chronicle last spoke to her in July.
As a result, desperate calls for help were increasing, she said.
"We're seeing a high number of KiwiSaver hardship applications coming through the door."
She estimated there had been a 30 per cent increase in applications through her service this year.
"Which is really sad people are having to turn to that."
Some KiwiSaver providers require people to do a hardship application alongside a budget adviser such as Fage, "because we would like to find alternative options".
It was vital for people to keep their KiwiSaver for retirement as she was seeing a lot of older people who rented having most of their superannuation gobbled up by high rents.
On the cost of vegetables being up 24 per cent, Fage said a lot of people had told her buying frozen vegetables was a good solution but "fresh is better", she said.
"I do encourage my clients to try to have a vege garden. That's where we need to go. If you've got a bit of dirt in your back garden, you should be planting vege."
She said Kai Hub and other food aid organisations were getting busier as more people needed help.
Fage said her organisation collected data on debt and had noticed clients owing less to family and friends than was usual.
"Because they're not in a position to provide financial help.
"[Inflation] is now affecting everybody."
She was sceptical falling house prices would translate to any reduction in rents - "landlords are not going to do that" - while buying a home was not an option for a lot of her clients.
"Who's got the deposit?
"Even with the KiwiSaver you still need more. If you're paying huge rent your ability to save has gone out the window."
