Advocata Index: Year on year increase in food prices of 30%

Advocata’s Bath Curry Indicator (BCI) which tracks the monthly changes in the price of a basket of commonly consumed food items, has recorded a 30 percent increase between August 2020 and August 2021. Prices have soared due to a multitude of factors in the last few years. Prices of the same basket of food items tracked on the BCI is up 70 percent compared to August 2019, Advocata, a local think tank, said in a media release.

The 30 percent increase in prices means that an average family, who spent Rs.757 weekly on the BCI basket of food items in August 2019 now has to pay Rs 1,288 for the same basket of goods. This is roughly Rs. 500 more than in 2019. “The month of August however recorded a minor decrease in food prices compared to the previous month, with the prices falling by 1.57 percent driven by lower prices for onions, rice and green chillies, whilst vegetables such as beans and pumpkin increased,” it said.
 

The items that contributed the most to prices falling in the month of August 2021 were Green chilli (21 percent), Red onions (19 percent) and samba rice (8 percent). Alternatively the prices of beans (6.92 percent), pumpkin (12.46 percent), brinjals (8.83 percent) and Dhal (0.71 percent) increased.

The BCI tracks the weekly retail prices in the Colombo market of the most commonly consumed food ingredients that might be used in a typical ‘Bath’ curry meal. The prices are collected from the “Weekly Indicators” that the Central Bank publishes. The BCI Indicator can be accessed at www.bci.advocata.org.