NZ Grocery Bills

[VileTraveller]

I must say this article has me slightly worried:

NZ grocery price hikes near OECD highest

I do hope that more competition is introduced into the NZ grocery market by the time I make the move. I know very well what a supermarket duopoly does to prices. Here in Hong Kong, two chains (who also own most other chain shops like chemists) openly collude on prices and blackmail suppliers into not dealing with potential rivals who would like to move into the market, like Carrefour. Here, of course, the government will never do anything - I can only hope that in NZ the situation is less gloomy.

[GrumpyGoat]

The high food costs are one of the worst things about living here. It is really just shocking how much we spend on food.

It would also be nice if they would take GST off food.

[Alive&Kicking]

I think I spend around 100 dollars a week for just myself on groceries, which is shocking when you think about it.
Yes, it is bloody expensive here compared to other countries and to the cost of other things.

Cheers,
Anita

[IanW99]

Out of interest anyone got the stats on which countries have the highest actual grocery prices?

The report posted just lists the percentage rise is second highest and not the prices themselves. This isn't too worrying if the prices started out a lot lower than other countries but not so good if they were already one of the highest anyway.

Ian

[Jolie]

From USB's Prices and Earnings 2009:

Highest food prices in Japan and Switzerland
Cultural, climatic, and dietary habits as well seasonal price fluctuations make it particularly tricky to accurately compare prices for food on a global scale. For our analysis, we put together a basket of 39 food items weighted mainly according to Western European consumption habits, whereby very important staples were included in larger quantities. The average worldwide cost of the basket is USD $385. Tokyo has the highest price tag for our basket, USD $710. Food prices are only marginally lower in Switzerland. Zurich takes second place at around USD $660, followed closely by Geneva at around USD $630. That makes food prices in Switzerland around 45% more expensive on average than in the rest of Western Europe.

(Auckland, the only NZ city on the list, comes in at Rank 44.)

		   USD$ for 39
		    selected	New York City
Rank	City	  grocery items	   = 100
----------------------------------------------
 1	Tokyo		712	124.7
 2	Zurich		658	115.4
 3	Geneva		633	111.0
 4	Caracas		604	105.9
 5	New York City	571	100.0
 6	Chicago		552	 96.7
 7	Hong Kong	551	 96.5
 8	Oslo		532	 93.3
 9	Los Angeles	526	 92.2
10	Copenhagen	515	 90.2
11	Paris		511	 89.5
12	Singapore	510	 89.4
13	Miami		509	 89.2
14	Seoul		508	 89.0
15	Luxembourg	480	 84.2
16	Rome		477	 83.6
17	Dublin		474	 83.1
18	Vienna		473	 82.9
19	Stockholm	471	 82.6
20	Lyon		469	 82.3
21	Helsinki	469	 82.2
22	Tel Aviv	458	 80.4
23	Milan		457	 80.2
24	Munich		437	 76.5
25	Barcelona	433	 75.9
26	Madrid		427	 74.8
27	Dubai		426	 74.7
28	Istanbul	418	 73.3
29	Montreal	418	 73.3
30	Brussels	418	 73.2
31	Toronto		414	 72.6
32	Shanghai	404	 70.9
33	Berlin		400	 70.2
34	Lisbon		389	 68.2
35	Taipei		388	 67.9
36	Frankfurt	386	 67.6
37	Doha		379	 66.4
38	Sydney		378	 66.3
39	Amsterdam	372	 65.1
40	Athens		366	 64.2
41	Nicosia		364	 63.8
42	Bangkok		362	 63.5
43	London		357	 62.6
44	Auckland	354	 62.1
45	Beijing		348	 60.9
46	Jakarta		345	 60.5
47	Manama		341	 59.8
48	Ljubljana	337	 59.1
49	Riga		304	 53.2
50	Bratislava	299	 52.4
51	São Paulo	295	 51.6
52	Moscow		292	 51.2
53	Sofia		280	 49.2
54	Tallinn		280	 49.2
55	Bucharest	278	 48.7
56	Budapest	275	 48.2
57	Warsaw		273	 47.9
58	Santiago(Chile)	272	 47.6
59	Vilnius		270	 47.3
60	Rio de Janeiro	269	 47.2
61	Bogotá		269	 47.1
62	Buenos Aires	256	 44.8
63	Manila		251	 44.0
64	Prague		247	 43.3
65	Nairobi		247	 43.2
66	Lima		238	 41.8
67	Kuala Lumpur	237	 41.5
68	Cairo		228	 40.0
69	Johannesburg	222	 38.9
70	Mexico City	216	 37.9
71	Kiev		211	 36.9
72	Delhi		178	 31.2
73	Mumbai		153	 26.9

I'd say that this is a bit worrying, given that London's food prices are the same, but salaries are 2x - 3x higher there than in New Zealand...

[VileTraveller]

Oh, well, agricultural land is beginning to look like a more attractive option, as opposed to a "lifestyle section"!

[KatieBen]

I was surprised at how much we spent on food when we arrived. Knowing that the salaries are relatively lower (& having previously visited when earning £) I was expecting equivalence or a little less.

We spend $250/ week for 2 adults/2 kids, shopping mostly at pak'n'save. This is about a third higher than I originally budgeted (think our food shopping was around £100/week in uk at it's highest).

[petri]

I have never taken grocery statistics seriously.

If I look at the basket they use for comparison here, it barely contains any products that we buy. Or even if you buy them, they are products that you need buy once a month or half a year and not every week.

Internationally there's the culture difference. Of course Tokyo is at the top. But if you eat a japanese diet, I'm pretty sure they grocery bill will be much lower. In some countries you go to a huge hypermarket and buy everything, in some countries the locals visit half a docen specialist shops to get what they need.

Then there's the seasons and overall quality. You can easily double, triple or quadruple the price for a product just by buying during a wrong season or from a different shop with different quality. Some products may be more expensive imports, sometimes the opposite.

I think with immigration one just has to adjust to the local diet the same way one adjusts to the local housing, banking, byrocrazy, and other customs.

[Kea]

We spend about $220 a week on our supermarket shop for two adults, a baby (so includes nappies) and a cat. For that we eat well, but cook everything from scratch. It doesn't sound that much when you convert to pounds. But as a proportion of the average income it is a lot.

[Ngeru]

I have never taken grocery statistics seriously.

If I look at the basket they use for comparison here, it barely contains any products that we buy. Or even if you buy them, they are products that you need buy once a month or half a year and not every week.

Internationally there's the culture difference. Of course Tokyo is at the top. But if you eat a japanese diet, I'm pretty sure they grocery bill will be much lower. In some countries you go to a huge hypermarket and buy everything, in some countries the locals visit half a docen specialist shops to get what they need.

Then there's the seasons and overall quality. You can easily double, triple or quadruple the price for a product just by buying during a wrong season or from a different shop with different quality. Some products may be more expensive imports, sometimes the opposite.

I think with immigration one just has to adjust to the local diet the same way one adjusts to the local housing, banking, byrocrazy, and other customs.

If you are a Brit the local diet is not very much different, it's the same meat, just different gravy.

It is worth a look at the study Jolie mentioned above it explains a lot as to why I feel so poor compared to when I lived in London.

There's a little table that shows on average how many hours you need to work to buy particular (non-seasonal) uniform goods that are the same the world over, which really brings it home:

Auckland
1 Big Mac = 19 minutes
1kg bread = 19 mins
1kg rice = 13 mins
1 iPod nano = 16 Hours

London
1 Big Mac = 13 minutes
1kg bread = 10 mins
1kg rice = 8 mins
1 iPod nano = 11 Hours

New York
1 Big Mac = 14 minutes
1kg bread = 12 mins
1kg rice = 8 mins
1 iPod nano = 9 Hours

Sydney
1 Big Mac = 14 minutes
1kg bread = 16 mins
1kg rice = 11 mins
1 iPod nano = 9.5 Hours