12 months to July<\/a>. <\/p>\nThe biggest contributor to the most recent increase was items in the grocery food group, which rose 4.7%, <\/p>\n
“The price increase for the grocery food group was due to higher prices for milk, cheese, and butter,” Stats NZ said. <\/p>\n
The price of two litres of milk rose 16.3% annually to $4.72. Cheese was $12.89 for a one-kilogram block, up 26.2% annually. Butter was up 31.8% annually to $8.58 per 500 grams. <\/p>\n
Stats NZ said the average prices for milk, cheese, and butter represented the cheapest available option for each. <\/p>\n
\u201cDairy products continue to be the main driver for the higher annual food prices,\u201d Stats NZ prices and deflators spokesperson Nicola Growden said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe price of two litres of milk has increased by 88 cents since December 2023.\u201d <\/p>\n
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The next largest contributor to the increase was the meat, poultry and fish group \u2013 up 8.1% in the 12 months to August. <\/p>\n
Higher prices for beef steak, beef mince, and lamb leg drove the increase. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe average price for beef mince was $22.53 per kilo in August 2025, that\u2019s an increase of $3.40 in just one year,\u201d Growden said. <\/p>\n
Other food groups that saw increases were fruit and vegetables (up 8.9%), restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food (up 2.4%), and non-alcoholic beverages (up 3.9%). <\/p>\n
Stats NZ also released data on rent prices, which rose 2.1% in the 12 months to August 2025. <\/p>\n
This followed a 2.4% increase in the 12 months to July. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time annual rent price increases were under 2.1% was March 2011,\u201d Growden said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once again higher prices for milk, cheese, and butter were the main drivers behind an increase in food…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,2917,219,144,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-24896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cost-of-living","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-food-drink","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}