RAPHAEL JOHN-LALL
raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt
Teresa Lockwood* (not her real name), a self-employed business owner who has to feed a family of five, says she has to come up with creative ways of feeding her family to stay within their monthly budget. Lockwood does everything from shop for bargains prices at different supermarkets to planting her own kitchen garden. "There are five of us in our family, and I do a general shopping for food monthly, which costs roughly $1,500. "I shop at Hi-Lo and Rodney's Supermarket. For Hi-Lo, I go for quality in terms of the meats, and at Rodney's, I go for the things that are cheaper, like rice, sugar, flour, milk and the basic items.
"Rodney's prices are cheaper than most of the supermarkets in the east.
"Buying things in bulk has its advantages but, generally, I shop month to month. When I shop, I use mostly cash," she said. Lockwood said that she does her shopping for food out of a monthly income of $8,000. "I have to make the sacrifice and make everything stretch for my family, but I do it. At the end of the day, we stick within our means. Sometimes I eat out with my family, maybe two or three times a month, we would have fast food." She hardly ever goes to the market now because of the high prices that she has to face.
"I haven't been going to the market for a while now because prices are so high: $15 a pound for tomatoes, $6 for one bundle of dasheen bush–and it's six sticks you get–$5 for two limes, $15 pound for sweet peppers, so I don't really shop for vegetables at the market, and even when I do, I pick up the basic things, like carrots, celery." Lately, Lockwood started her own kitchen garden to supplement what she buys in the supermarket. "In addition, these days I have a 'grow box' where I have my own kitchen garden. So basically., I'm into a kitchen garden to subsidise the vegetables that I buy. Some of the things that I have in my kitchen garden are: patchoi, lettuce, sweet pepper, tomatoes, celery, parsley.
By growing these things home, I'm trying to save on money." Lockwood believes food prices in the supermarket have not seen a sharp increase as much as in the market. "To me, the vegetables in the market and other things went up sky high. I don't think the supermarket prices went up as high. I think shopping at different supermarkets for different things kind of balances things out. The prices for vegetables in the market is just too high." She said like everyone else, she hopes that food prices go down she doesn't expect it to happen any time soon.
"I like most people would like to see food prices go down, but I don't see that happening at the moment. You know when prices go up, they stay that way, they don't come back down. Very few items may go back down."
Food prices increased by 31 per cent.
That was the main cause for the sharp increase in headline inflation in the year to June, Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams last Tuesday.
In its July 23 repo rate report, the Central Bank stated that food prices have pushed headline inflation up to 13.7 per cent. Inflation was at 9.6 per cent in June. The report stated: "Inflation has accelerated further in mid-2010, driven by an unexpectedly large rise in domestic food prices. Food prices jumped sharply in June to 31.1 per cent (year-on-year), up from 19.4 per cent in May and 7.0 per cent in March.
"On a monthly basis, food prices rose by 9.6 per cent in June–the highest monthly rate of increase in well over a decade. "The recent floods in some key agricultural districts, in conjunction with the severe drought which led to the widespread rationing of water earlier in the year, have severely hampered domestic crop production. "In the 12 months to June, fruit and vegetables, which account for 20 per cent of the food prices sub-index, posted price increases of 48.0 per cent and 51.9 per cent, respectively."
