Latest / Best of Business / Brad Olsen: Infometrics chief executive on food prices going up again thanks to eggs and dairy

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Brad Olsen: Infometrics chief executive on food prices going up again thanks to eggs and dairy · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: Cray and Bread.
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  Speaker 2: Our food price is up four point seven percent in
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  Speaker 2: the year of October. Melk cup thirteen and a half percent,
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  Speaker 2: four hundred four dollars seventy eight a liter, Cheese up
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  Speaker 2: thirty percent, eggs up eighteen and a half percent, almost
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  Speaker 2: ten bucks a dozen. Now, instant coffee was up twenty
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  Speaker 2: five percent. But that's discussing anyway, So who cares. Brad
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  Speaker 2: Olsen inf Metric's principal economists with me. Hey, Brad, good afternoon.
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  Speaker 2: So sur price is still going up.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, life is still pretty expensive. That the good news
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  Speaker 3: is as we head into summer, you're seeing some areas
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  Speaker 3: of relief, the likes of fruit and vegetables becoming a
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  Speaker 3: bit cheaper as we get into that better growing season.
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  Speaker 3: But look, as you're thinking of, you know, Christmas sort
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  Speaker 3: of lunch or or dinner, I don't think you're going
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  Speaker 3: to be wanting to put the likes of mince patties
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  Speaker 3: or steak on the barbie or ething, given that those
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  Speaker 3: have increased in fact a couple of months ago, right,
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  Speaker 3: We were talking a lot about butter mince now the
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  Speaker 3: new butter in a sense, given that though that's increased,
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  Speaker 3: I think it's now twenty three bucks of kilo. For that,
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  Speaker 3: your staples are still really expensive. They continue to go up,
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  Speaker 3: so still pretty challenging for a lot of household.
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  Speaker 2: How are you saying go vegan?
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  Speaker 3: No, I'm saying maybe shop around, because while the likes
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  Speaker 3: of beef and lamb and even fish has increased, the
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  Speaker 3: likes of pork and chicken hasn't shifted all that much,
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  Speaker 3: so that there's a little bit of option on the table.
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  Speaker 3: The one that worries me, though, that we don't talk
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  Speaker 3: about a lot, is the fact that electricity price inflation
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  Speaker 3: is currently running it as fastest since nineteen eighty nine.
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  Speaker 3: Like that stuff's really starting to hit households and you
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  Speaker 3: can't avoid that.
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  Speaker 2: Cost, right, So what does this do to the overall
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  Speaker 2: inflation number? Before the end of the year, we were
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  Speaker 2: going to hit three percent over three percent.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we're there at the moment. We expect things to
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  Speaker 3: come down, but that's more because yes, you've got the
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  Speaker 3: likes of your food price inflation that's still running hot.
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  Speaker 3: Electricity and similar as well. The challenge that I think
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  Speaker 3: I'm finding when you look at the headline numbers, the
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  Speaker 3: price of like a couch or your you know, fridge,
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  Speaker 3: or a phone or similar are coming down. That's good,
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  Speaker 3: but how many of those are we buying each week?
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  Speaker 3: It's the really essential stuff that you're paying very, very
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  Speaker 3: fre frequently. You are electricity, your food and similar that's
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  Speaker 3: continuing to hit. So although headline inflation might be in
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  Speaker 3: a better place going forward, the cost of living challenge
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  Speaker 3: for households doing it day by day is still going
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  Speaker 3: to be tough.
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  Speaker 2: Fred, Thank you Brad Lson in for Metrics.
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