“But trust depends on businesses being open and transparent about why those increases are happening.”
Damen said that while Consumer hadn’t heard of concerns relating to “excuseflation”, the cost of living remained New Zealanders’ “number one concern”.
“As a result, people are paying much closer attention to prices and value than they have in the past.
“When household budgets are stretched, people are more likely to question whether a price increase is fair.”
Last November, Moerewa resident Rose Hura told the Northern Advocate that the cost of living had forced her to rethink how she shopped.
She had started comparing prices for the best deals and had cut out expensive items altogether including butter and olive oil.
Nearly one year on, Hura said, “everything has gotten more expensive” for her whānau of seven.
“The weekly shop has gone from $300 to between $400 and $500,” she said.
“The cost of fruit and vegetables and meat – everything is shocking.
“Now you’re paying almost $15 for 500g of mince.
“The petrol prices are killing everyone in general.”
Hura said she had seen a dramatic shift in price hikes.
“I feel some businesses have jumped on the bandwagon and used the increase in petrol prices to drive their own prices up.
“Definitely those big supermarket chains have jumped on it as well.
“It’s harder to be clever about the way we shop; you don’t get as much bang for buck.”
While overall inflation has slowed down compared to previous years, everyday expenses for essentials like power, groceries, and insurance remain high.
New Zealand’s annual inflation rate rose to 4.1% for the 12 months to the June 2026 quarter, up from 3.1% in March.
The main price drivers were petrol (up 27.5%) and diesel (up 71%), driven largely by Middle East conflicts affecting global fuel costs.
Electricity prices (up 12%) and council rates (up 8.8%) were also factors in the inflation equation.
Northlander Rose Hura (left) said high food and petrol prices were making life harder for her family.
Northland Chamber of Commerce acting chief executive Tim Robinson said the extra fuel costs associated with the Iran war had added upward of 25% in costs for many businesses.
“Most businesses have absorbed that,” he said.
“There are probably a number who said ‘Trump promised the war would be over in six weeks, now it’s six months later and there’s a new normal where petrol costs are sitting.
“Courier surcharges have risen, and anyone shipping goods have had real cost increases.
“A lot of businesses are going ‘in absence of certainty in fuel prices coming down, we’ll start looking at price rises to recover the costs of additional freight.”
Robinson said if businesses can’t cover their costs they simply go out of business.
“And that’s terrible for everybody,” he said.
“It’s a sad state of affairs we’re in right now.
“A lot of things are outside of our control as a country.”
Earlier this year, the Commerce Commission warned businesses against making fuel surcharge claims “if you don’t have reasonable grounds for believing it to be true”.
Any surcharge should be based on “real and current cost pressures”, the commission said.
“While fuel surcharges can be a legitimate way for businesses to recover unexpected increases in fuel costs, we want to remind businesses about how to apply them fairly.
“Fuel surcharges must reflect only the additional fuel costs your business is facing and cannot be used as an excuse to recover unrelated expenses or to increase margins.”
Last year, Northlanders were also noticing “shrinkflation” in the shops.
Many residents felt they were getting less bang for their buck at the supermarket and some eateries as products and portions reduced in size, while the prices remained the same.
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues.