Increasing cost of healthy eating

Australia: prices of fruit and veg rising fastest

A five-year study in Queensland, published this week in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, has shown that the price of fruit and veg in Australia is increasing much more rapidly than the prices of other less healthy foods. In this time period, the inflation rate for food was 32.5%, but prices of snacks and confectionery rose by less than the average rate (a 31% rise) and the price of fresh produce and other healthy food rose by 50%. In particular, fruit prices increased by 112%, nearly four times the average cost increase.

The author of the study, Professor Amanda Lee from the University of Queensland’s Faculty of Health, called for a new national inflation index that considers only healthy food rather than ‘just commonly purchased food’ as this ‘would help to provide a truer picture of cost increases and the broader health and economic implications’.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 13 April 2010.

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