In 1999, when most of us were worrying about Y2K bugs and dial-up internet speeds, the food price index for Rest of North Island regions sat at 664. Last year, it hit 15,443. (Source: Stats NZ, food-price-index-regional)

That's not a typo. Over 25 years, the number measuring what provincial families pay for groceries multiplied more than 23 times. And the acceleration tells you everything about where we are now.

For the first decade, the climb was steady but manageable. By 2009, the index had reached 3,847. That's roughly a 480% increase, which sounds dramatic until you realize it averaged out to about 17% per year across a full decade. Families adjusted. Wages grew. Life moved on.

Then something shifted. Between 2009 and 2019, the index nearly doubled again, hitting 7,429. The pace had picked up, but it still felt like the kind of gradual creep you could plan around. You noticed bread was more expensive, meat cost more, but you adapted your shopping list.

Then came 2020. The index sat at 12,615 that year. COVID had arrived, supply chains were fracturing, and suddenly the number started moving in ways it never had before.

Look at what happened next. In just four years, from 2020 to 2024, the index jumped from 12,615 to 15,443. That's nearly 3,000 points. To put that in perspective: it took ten years to add the first 3,000 points. It took four years to add the most recent 3,000.

The steepest single-year jump came between 2022 and 2023, when the index leaped from 13,992 to 15,362. That's a 1,370-point increase in twelve months. Families in places like Hawke's Bay, Manawatū, Taranaki, and Whanganui felt it immediately. The weekly shop that used to clock in around $250 suddenly needed $280, then $300.

Last year brought a tiny reprieve: the index rose just 81 points, from 15,362 to 15,443. But that's not relief. That's exhaustion. Prices didn't fall. They just stopped climbing quite so fast. You're still paying more than you ever have. You've just stopped being shocked by it.

Here's what that 25-year arc means in practice: if you're in your forties now, with kids, living anywhere from Gisborne to New Plymouth, you're spending more than 23 times what your parents would have spent on the same grocery shop in 1999. Wages haven't kept pace. Housing costs have exploded. And now the thing you do every week without thinking about it has become one of the biggest line items in your budget.

The number is 15,443. But the story is about everything that number represents: a generation of families who've watched the cost of feeding themselves become unsustainable, one year at a time, until suddenly it wasn't gradual anymore.