Last week was a crazy week with some publications reporting that prices had gone up by 100% in Bulawayo. This week was more muted in terms of attention as people were occupied by the spiralling exchange rate on the black market.

This doesn’t mean prices didn’t go up. They did go up in most shops as business owners pursued the fleeing rate. It got so bad that some small grocery shops in downtown Harare were forced to close their doors and wait for sanity.

Grocery prices from our latest survey

Some things to note

• We saw a lot of variations in the price of mealie-meal with prices approaching $60 in some shops
• There was no cooking oil in OK, last week we saw them selling a brand we have never seen before
• FoodWorld has been the most reliable when it comes to selling cooking oil. Their Raha brand is probably the cheapest on the market
• Supermarkets are now becoming cheaper than the smaller downtown shops that demand cash
• The downtown shops become even more expensive as they constantly pursue the rate and given the opportunity cost of getting cash. Some agents now demand as much as 60% when you want to cash out
• OK sugar is still selling at old prices, the price of sugar went up. This is probably them still selling old stock. People are struggling and as we get into summer demand for sugar has fallen
• While the price of peanut butter is going up the price for Jam has remained very low, this is probably a result of bread prices. Jam is good only for one thing, spreading it on bread while you can do a lot with peanut butter including putting it in your veggies (works if you don’t have cooking oil!) or in porridge as people find a substitute for that expensive bread

Meat prices

Due to other commitments we were not able to document our meat survey as we have been doing during other weeks but here are indicative prices/kg:

• Tripe is selling for around $19.00
• Casings $17.00
• Commercial and Stewing Beef around $35.00
• Commercial blade $39
• Super blade $49.00
• Chicken cuts $22.00
• Wings $27.00

There wasn’t much movement in the price of vegetables although prices continue to creep upwards.

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