Sri Lanka’s ’Bath Curry’ index reveals highest food price increase in at least 18 years

Official food inflation in Sri Lanka stood at 57.4% per cent in May, the highest ever year-on-year food prices ever recorded since 2004.

Advocata Institute’s Bath Curry Indicator (BCI), which tracks changes in the retail price of food, also recorded its highest ever increase of 71 per cent from May 2021 to May 2022 and an increase of 13 per cent over the past month, the organisation said in a media release on Friday.

This is the largest ever increase in food prices since the index started measuring a basket of commonly consumed food items from 2019. With food prices increasing at this rate, a family that had to spend Rs. 1140 for a week of food in May 2019 now has to spend Rs. 1940 to consume the same basket of food items.

The BCI uses the Pettah retail price for its calculation.  Similarly, prices for the same basket in supermarkets for the same basket of goods have nearly doubled since May 2020.  The Colombo consumer price index that looks at overall inflation, stood at 39 per cent in May 2022. This is the highest inflation rate recorded for the past 70 years.

Dr. Sarath Rajapatirana, Chair of Advocata Institute’s Academic programme said: “Inflation is an insidious and cruel tax. And, inflation of food is very harmful as it strikes the most vulnerable-children and old people. One other problem not often highlighted in most discussions on the subject is that it distorts relative prices, creating a misallocation of resources.”

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 Buth curry meal. The prices are collected from the “Weekly Indicators” that the Central Bank publishes.