The cost of a home-cooked vegetarian meal surged 8% year-on-year in April, accelerating from 7% increases in February and March, while expenditure on a non-vegetarian meal hit a four-month high of ₹56.3, as per Crisil’s monthly tracker of thali costs.
Price gains in onions, tomatoes and potatoes speeded up last month, to 41%, 40% and 38%, respectively, while rice and pulses inflation also stayed firm at 14% and 20% when compared with the YoY trends in March, when they were up 14% and 22%, respectively. Lower crop arrivals for rice and pulses played a role, as was the case with onions, Crisil Market Intelligence & Analytics pointed out in its ‘Roti Rice Rate’ report for April.
The report serves as an indicator of food inflation trends ahead of April’s official retail inflation data, which is expected on May 14. Over February and March, while food plate costs rose 7%, India’s retail food inflation remained high at 8.7% and 8.5%, respectively.
Onion supplies were hit by a significant drop in rabi acreage, while damage to the potato crop in West Bengal contributed to the price increases, Crisil said, adding that the low base effects from last year had also played a role in the high inflation rates for onions, tomatoes and potatoes.
However, declines in the prices of cumin, chilli and vegetable oil, which contracted YoY by 40%, 31% and 10%,respectively, had helped temper the pace of price gains in vegetarian thali costs.
While a non-vegetarian food plate’s cost dropped 4% YoY in April, as broiler prices fell by about 12% from the high base of last year, there was a 3% sequential rise in the thali’s cost compared with the ₹54.9 level estimated in March. Broiler prices, which constitute about half of a non-vegetarian meal’s cost, rose 4% from the previous month due to higher demand and input costs.
Vegetarian meal costs rose only marginally on a sequential basis, moving from ₹27.3 in March to ₹27.4 in April. This, Crisil reckoned, was due to a 3% drop in fuel cost and 4% decline in onion prices on a month-on-month basis, even as tomato and potato prices rose sequentially too.
