The cost of fuel, gas and electricity is on the rise, as well as weekly rent and mortgage payments, but it is the increased cost of essential food items which appears to be concerning locals the most.

Everyone has to eat and the price of groceries continuing to increase is putting pressure on household budgets across the country.

Many reasons have been attributed to the climbing cost of grocery prices, including supply chain issues, disrupted harvests, labour costs, skyrocketing fertiliser prices which has had a negative impact on local farmers and widespread flooding in parts of New South Wales and Queensland.

The war in Ukraine, the country that contributes a large portion of the world’s wheat supply, has also led to supply chains across the world being disrupted by trade sanctions.

Narrandera’s Vinnies Fruitz owner Vince Mercuri attributed the wet weather in many growing areas as one of the main causes driving up prices for fruit and vegetables.

“First of all it’s been the bad weather over the past three months that’s affected a lot of things”, Mr Mercuri said. Some of the fruits and vegetables have perished in the over watered ground.

The farmers have to initially start planting crops to sustain them over Spring, but they’ve missed those opportunities because the ground is so wet.

Some areas in Queensland and NSW have really good constant periodic rainfall, but the weather has been miserable and they’ve been flooded, so it’s not been ideal growing conditions and it’s devastated a lot of their crops.

A lot of those guys in big growing areas didn’t have the manpower to harvest and get the fruit and vegetables out of the ground.

Everyone has started to buy lettuces out of South Australia and Western Australia and those states have devastated their supplies because they’re supplying the whole of Australia.

Mr Mercuri said he could see why customers were frustrated but insisted that there was no price gouging taking place.

“People think supermarkets are ripping them off, but it’s the farmers that are putting the price on the article and I don’t have any disrespect for farmers as they’re just trying to make a bit of money in hard times for them – they have the added responsibility of the paying for all their sprays, fertilisers and fuel costs”, he said.

There are a lot of vegetables grown locally and the demand for those vegetables has meant the prices have gone through the roof but it’s not the farmers’ fault.

“All the pumpkins, broccoli, silverbeet and cabbages are good value at the moment and our prices reflect that.

“I can’t see the high prices ending anytime soon – I’m selling lettuces at $9 but I’m buying them for $9.50, so I’m losing money on them just to have them on the shelves for customers.”

A Coles supermarket spokesperson said the supermarket was aware of the numerous factors which had led to increased prices at the till.

“We appreciate that there are a number of factors driving inflation for all retailers, including increases in the cost of raw materials, energy price rises and freight costs, however there are a number of ways in which we deliver value to customers.

“This includes weekly specials to excite and in-spire customers, our Down Down and Everyday prices which offer key staples at trusted pricing for the longer term.

The spokesperson said Coles had actually reduced prices on numerous items.

This financial year to date, we have reduced prices on well over 2000 items across our range of more than 20,000 prod-ucts.

Coles has also kept prices low on key items our customers rely on to feed their families like Coles Brand Pasta 500g, famous Coles Mum’s Sauce 500g and Coles Beef and Pork meatballs 560g, Coles tuna 95g to name a few, all of which have remained at the same price for the last year.

Another great way for customers to save money is by shopping value specials, which are sent directly to our online customers and Fly-buys members as My Weekly Specials, to let them know when something they regularly buy is discounted.

Fruit and vegetables seem to have been the hardest hit in relation to the recent soaring prices, with meat, seafood, bread and dairy products not far behind.

The Consumer Price Index revealed that the cost of fruit and vegetables had risen by almost seven percent in the past year.

This article appeared in the  Narrandera Argus, 16 June 2022.