South African food inflation continues to decelerate

South African food and non-alcoholic beverage (NAB) inflation (hereafter to be referred to just as food inflation, for short) decelerated for the third month in succession, in February, the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Production (BFAP) think tank has highlighted, in its latest ‘Food Inflation Brief’ report. In year-on-year terms, food inflation in February was 6.1%, a full 1.1 percentage points below the January rate of 7.2%. In November, food inflation had been running at 9%. However, consumer price index (CPI) headline inflation in February increased to 5.6%, continuing an upward trend that started in December, when the figure had been 5.1%. Food inflation contributed 1.1 percentage points to CPI headline inflation. In month-on-month terms, food inflation in February ran at zero percent. Month-on-month CPI headline inflation was 1%, to which food inflation contributed zero percentage points.