Bath Curry indicator shows 2% yearly food price increase and 1.6% monthly dip

18 October 2023 04:15 am Views - 715

Advocata’s Bath Curry Indicator (BCI), a price index monitoring monthly fluctuations in the retail prices of commonly consumed food items, has reported a year-on-year increase of approximately 2 percent from September 2022 to September 2023. and a month-on-month decline of 1.6 percent in prices between August and September 2023.

Additionally, the BCI also tracks the price of the same basket of food items as they retail at local supermarkets, which shows an annual decline of roughly 16 percent of the BCI’s basket of items between September 2022 to 2023, and month-on-month fall of 3.2 percent between August and September 2023.

According to the BCI, the items that contributed the most to prices falling between August 2023 to September 2023 were tomatoes (12 percent), pumpkin (10 percent) and brinjals (8 percent). 

Alternatively, the prices of green chillies (7 percent) and beans (4 percent) increased during this period. 

The Advocata BCI tracks the weekly retail prices in the Colombo market of the most commonly consumed food ingredients that might be used in a typical bath curry meal. The prices are collected from the ‘Weekly Indicators’ that the Central Bank publishes.