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Sour taste of food price rises
View(s):With the end of lockdown home cooking, some are rushing to restaurants to savour gourmet meals while others return to their favourite food counter lunch packets on a working day, but everyone is feeling the increase in the price of prepared food.
Back to buying lunch packets but at a price. Pic by Priyanka Samaraweera
Buffets at restaurants have increased between Rs. 200-500 while lunch packets have increased between Rs. 20-50, the Sunday Times found.
“We have made slight increases because demand has gone down, with few people coming to offices, and because of the price increase in vegetables, condiments and fish,” an employee of a food outlet down St. Michael’s Road in Kollupitiya, which usually attracts a large number of office employees at lunchtime, said.
The price rises have worried workers. “My daily food expense is about Rs. 500-600 a day. With salary cuts it is with great difficulty that I am paying for rent and food,” Kamaleswaran Moorthy, 28, a resident of Hatton who works in Colombo, said. His comments were echoed by many.
“Unfortunately, we cannot impose any price regulation on prepared food as the quality, pricing and the place of serving vary. People tell us about price increases but there is no law or no way of introducing price control or maximum price,” the head of Consumer Affairs and Information at the Consumer Affairs Authority, Asela Bandara, said.
Comparison with figures kept by the Census and Statistics Department show how raw food prices have risen.
Spices and condiments such as turmeric, dried chillies, cinnamon and Maldive fish have all increased in price. Canned fish (425g) that was sold at Rs. 238 last year is now Rs. 282. Fresh chicken, formerly Rs. 562, is now Rs. 637.
A coconut now costs Rs. 67, not Rs. 46 as it did last year; a bottle of coconut oil has gone up from Rs. 254 to Rs. 359.
Green beans have gone up almost Rs. 50 a kilo, potatoes by Rs. 30, brinjals by Rs. 20 and cabbages by Rs. 50.
Fish and other seafood is also more expensive.