{"id":788082,"date":"2026-07-09T00:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788082\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T00:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:41:12","slug":"grocery-prices-australia-the-sobering-reason-your-groceries-are-about-to-cost-even-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788082\/","title":{"rendered":"Grocery prices Australia: The sobering reason your groceries are about to cost even more"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Australia\u2019s top economists has warned Australian consumers that grocery<\/a> prices will keep climbing after the dramatic re-escalation in the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n

Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) chief economist Dr Sarah Hunter<\/a> spoke in Canberra on Wednesday, where she explained the ongoing war between the US, Israel and Iran would continue to impact the food supply chain from farming through to grocery distribution.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Australian consumers are being warned that food prices will keep climbing.\u00a0iStockphoto<\/p>\n

She said these \u201ctypes of economic disturbances, or shocks\u201d placed additional pressure on production, processing, and transportation costs, which were already under inflationary pressure before the start of the conflict in February.<\/p>\n

Dr Hunter said the conflict was having a \u201cbroad impact across many parts of the economy\u201d resulting in an increase in \u201cglobal energy and related prices\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

The Reserve Bank says the war has impacted the food supply chain.\u00a0iStockphoto<\/p>\n

A fragile ceasefire the US brokered with Iran in mid-June collapsed this week.<\/p>\n

The conflict between the US and Iran, which began in February, placed immediate price pressures on domestic diesel which is used to transport food from farms and production locations to supermarkets.<\/p>\n

The price of fertiliser used on farms has also soared, which caused the price of production of grain, fruit, and vegetables to increase. About 50 per cent of Australia\u2019s fertiliser supply comes from Middle Eastern nations.<\/p>\n

RBA Governor Michele Bullock previously explained<\/a> Australia was already grappling with inflationary issues when the war in the Middle East broke out, serving to worsen the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis oil shock that has been driven by what\u2019s gone on in the Middle East, this has complicated things immensely,\u201d she said in May.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Production, processing, and transportation have all become more expensive.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s made a trade-off for us much worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grocery prices in Australia have increased by an estimated 24 per cent between 2021 and 2025, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was due to inflationary pressures, increasing costs of production, and further exacerbated by what the ACCC described as misleading behaviour by the country\u2019s two largest supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths.<\/p>\n

\"coles<\/p>\n

Grocery prices in Australia had already soared ahead of the start of the war in Iran.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

This triggered legal action by the ACCC, which resulted in a finding in May that Coles had misled customers with some of their \u201cDown Down\u201d promotion. <\/p>\n

The outcome of similar action against Woolworths is still pending. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Australia\u2019s top economists has warned Australian consumers that grocery prices will keep climbing after the dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-788082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}