After a few months of relative quiet, it seems prices of basic commodities in Zimbabwe are now going up again. Notable among the price changes are the recent rise in the prices of maize meal which is now selling for about $580 ZWL per $10kg and almost $700 for refined meal. Then there is also bread which recently went up to $89.99 ZWL per loaf.

Cooking oil is which used to sell for just below $300 mark late last year per 2 Litre bottle is now selling for over $350 ZWL for the same bottle with some shops even daring to breach the $400 ZWL mark. There is a general rise in prices of other household commodities as well including beef with some butcheries selling stewing beef for a shocking US$7 per KG instead of the usual US$3.50 to US$4.00

The mystery of empty mealie-meal shelves

We also observed a number of panicked shoppers hauling sackfuls of mealie-meal mumbling something about an impending shortage. This doesn’t even make sense. This is not 2019 when we were coming off a drought. There is plenty of mealie-meal to go around. True to our prediction the empty mealie-meal slots in Gain Cash and Carry and OK where we saw this were promptly filled by more piles of more mealie-meal.

There is no mealie-meal shortage although the price might go up again especially if shoppers continue to panic buy as they are doing in some shops.