Grocery Prices From Selected Supermarkets And Wholesalers- January 2021

• We surveyed the most popular 4 supermarkets in the country.:
  • OK supermarkets
  • Pick N Pay (TM)
  • Food World
• Sadly we could not survey Choppies this time around.
• The price of peanut butter is above US$2 for the smallest bottle which normally sells for about US$1
• Prices of most items are usually within 5% of one another. Where the prices seem too different it is probably because different brands of the item were surveyed in the two shops being compared. We look for the cheapest but popular brands. We don’t always look at the cheapest brand for example:
  • Nurse tissues are among the cheaper brands but they are not the cheapest. They are the cheapest widely accepted brand. Other cheaper brands are frankly rubbish.
  • We look at Sunlight, Surf and Maq when it comes to the cheapest washing powder brands, however, we don’t normally include brilliant although it is the cheapest brand out there. Housewives just don’t like or buy much of it with packets spending months on shelves.
  • We only include real white/long grain rice but don’t include broken white rice although it is cheaper.
  • For popular items, we list separate items, for example, dilutable drinks and bath soap. We don’t do this for items such as matches and candles. Most people just buy matches without really caring about which brand it is. People don’t usually care about brands here.
• Also, prices of fresh veggies tend to vary wildly between supermarkets.

Prices last updated 23 December 2020

Something to note

Despite repeated denials by both government and businesses, there is still an undeniable link between prices and black market exchange rates.

Gain Cash And Carry Prices

Item	Price ZWL$	Price USD$	Price Rand
10x2kg Gloria Self Raising Flour	1 747.64	16.64	266.75
10x2kg Gloria Self Raising Cake Flour	1 747.64	16.64	266.75
10x2kg Red Seal Self Raising Flour	1 566.49	14.82	237.58
1x5kg Gloria Self Raising Flour	442.85	4.22	67.59
1x5kg Red Seal Self Raising Flour	411.77	3.92	62.85
10x2kg Better Buy Value Rice	1 582.63	18.00	–
12×2 litres ZimGold Cooking Oil	3 498.00	31.90	–

A word about inflation

Zimbabwe’s prices have been going up since 2018. This coincided with the introduction and rise of both the bond notes and RTGS dollar which were essentially the Zimbabwean dollar(ZWL). The government finally admitted this in February 2019 and passed laws marking its return in June of 2019.

Grocery News Updates