Grocery food and poultry drive FPI increase

Food prices increased 0.4 percent in the November 2007 month, Statistics New Zealand said today.

The increase was mainly due to higher prices for the grocery food subgroup (up 1.3 percent) and the meat,poultry and fish subgroup (up 1.5 percent).

Within the grocery food subgroup, the main contributors to the 1.3 percent increase were higher pricesfor bread (up 3.3 percent), potato crisps (up 7.8 percent) and cheese (up 4.7 percent).

Poultry increased in price by 8.2 percent, accounting for most of the meat, poultry and fish subgroup rise. Aless significant upward contribution came from higher prices for beef (up 2.1 percent).

For the year to November 2007, food prices rose 3.9 percent.

Significant upward contributions came from higher prices for the grocery food (up 5.5 percent), meat, poultry and fish (up 6.9 percent), and restaurantmeals and ready-to-eat food (up 3.9 percent) subgroups.

The only downward contribution came from lowerprices for the fruit and vegetables subgroup (down 3.7 percent)