In 2020, the annual grocery bill for a household in the Rest of North Island. everywhere outside Auckland and Wellington. sat at $12,615. That's $242 a week. Tight, but workable for most families.

Then 2021 arrived. The bill climbed to $12,926. An extra $6 a week. Barely noticeable. You might have chalked it up to buying more milk or splurging on biscuits.

By 2022, it was $13,992. That's $269 a week. The jump felt real now. Families started switching brands, buying less meat, stretching meals further. The weekly shop that used to fit in one trolley suddenly needed careful planning.

2023 hit harder. The annual bill reached $15,362. That's $295 a week. In three years, groceries had gone up $2,747 a year. For a family already stretched thin, that's a car registration, a dental bill, or a chunk of the power account. money that simply disappeared into the supermarket checkout.

And 2024? $15,443. It barely moved from 2023, which sounds like relief until you realise it stayed at $297 a week. The price didn't drop. It just stopped climbing quite so fast.

Add it all up: in five years, the cost of feeding a household in provincial North Island rose by $2,828 a year. That's $54 more every single week than it was when COVID arrived. For regions where wages often lag behind the main centres, that extra $54 isn't absorbed easily. It comes out of savings, out of holidays, out of the gap between getting by and getting ahead.

This is the story of how grocery inflation worked in the regions. Not in one dramatic leap, but in a relentless creep. Six dollars here, twenty-seven dollars there, until the weekly shop that used to be routine became something you had to strategise around.

The number for 2024 might look stable compared to 2023. But stable at $297 a week is still $297 a week. And for families in Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, Taranaki, and everywhere in between, that's $54 more than they were spending before the world changed. (Source: Stats NZ, food-price-index-regional)