LNP – 15% food price increase in a single month

Advocata’s Bath Curry Indicator (BCI), which tracks the monthly changes in the retail price of food, has recorded an increase of 15% from November 2021 to December 2021.

It said much of this increase is driven by rising prices of vegetables. 100 g of Green Chillies at Rs. 18 increased to Rs, 71. This is a 287% increase in just one month. Similarly, prices of Brinjals have increased by 51%, red onions by 40% and beans and tomatoes by 10%.

Overall, since 2019, prices have almost doubled, and compared to December 2020, prices have increased by 37%.

This means that an average family of four, who spent Rs. 1,165 weekly on the BCI basket of food items in December 2020, now has to pay Rs. 1,593 for the same basket of goods just one year later.

The 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.

The BCI Indicator can be accessed at www.bci.advocata.org.