The av­er­age price of food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages in­creased by 12.99 per cent be­tween March 2022 and March 2023, ac­cord­ing to Guardian Me­dia cal­cu­la­tions of da­ta pub­lished by the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) on Sun­day.

The price of food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages in­creased by 14.04 per cent be­tween Feb­ru­ary 2022 and Feb­ru­ary 2023, an in­di­ca­tion of an eas­ing in the in­crease in prices of food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages.

For the pe­ri­od March 2022 to March 2023, head­line in­fla­tion amount­ed to 7.34 per cent. That was down from the 7.60 per cent for the pe­ri­od Feb­ru­ary 2022 to Feb­ru­ary 2023.

The CSO said the food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages de­creased from 147.8 in Feb­ru­ary 2023 to 146.1 in March 2023, re­flect­ing a de­crease of 1.2 per cent.

“Con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to this de­crease was the gen­er­al down­ward move­ment in the prices of pump­kin, toma­toes, mel­on, hot pep­pers, cab­bage, me­l­on­gene, car­rots, pi­men­to, cel­ery and par­boiled rice.

“How­ev­er, the full im­pact of these price de­creas­es was off­set by the gen­er­al in­creas­es in the prices of chilled or frozen beef, fresh beef, chilled or frozen pork, cu­cum­ber, onions, or­anges, ta­ble mar­garine, grapes, corn and plan­tains.

“Price changes in this sec­tion for the month of March 2023 ac­count­ed for a net over­all de­crease of 0.3 points in the All Items In­dex,” said the CSO.

T&T’s of­fi­cial sta­tis­tics agency said: “A fur­ther re­view of the da­ta for March 2023 com­pared with Feb­ru­ary 2023 re­flect­ed an in­crease in the sub-in­dex for al­co­holic bev­er­ages and to­bac­co of 2.1 per cent. Al­so, this pe­ri­od showed a de­crease in the sub-in­dex for Health of 0.3 per cent. All oth­er sec­tions re­mained un­changed.”

In its Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy An­nounce­ment dat­ed March 31, 2023, the Cen­tral Bank said: Do­mes­tic in­fla­tion mod­er­at­ed in Jan­u­ary. Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, head­line in­fla­tion de­cel­er­at­ed to 8.3 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2023 (year-on-year) com­pared with 8.7 per cent a month ear­li­er.

“Food in­fla­tion re­mained un­changed at 17.3 per cent, with slow­er price in­creas­es for fish, breads and ce­re­als.

“Core in­fla­tion (which ex­cludes food items) slowed to 6.1 per cent from 6.7 per cent, as price in­creas­es eased for hous­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and fur­nish­ings. The rate of price

in­creas­es for build­ing ma­te­ri­als al­so de­cel­er­at­ed.”