In today’s Codera Analytics post we show a measure of food insecurity by province based on retail data. Food insecurity is measured by looking at how consumers’ spending on specific items change as prices and their expenditure changes. We show comparisons between our most recent retail estimates and StatSA’s food poverty estimates for 2023. While not strictly comparable, both our retailer data and StatSA estimates suggest that food insecurity is roughly between 15% and 20% for South Africa. Retail data suggest that consumers in the North West and the Free State are struggling the most, where more than 20% of consumers pass our thresholds of food insecurity. The coming inflation spike is likely to move more consumers above the threshold with effects likely to vary geographically.
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