In 1975, when New Zealand still had price controls and import licenses, the food price index for Wellington was measured at a baseline that feels quaint now. Fifty years later, that same index sits at 15,246 points.

The number itself is abstract. But track the climb year by year, and you see the story of how food stopped being just another household cost and became the thing families argue about at the checkout.

For the first three decades, the rise was steady but manageable. Incremental. The kind of inflation you budget for, complain about, then adapt to. Then came the 2000s, and the pace shifted. The index climbed faster. Not catastrophically. Just relentlessly.

By 2020, Wellington hit 12,357 points. COVID arrived. Borders closed. Supply chains fractured. And suddenly, the trajectory that had been steep became vertical.

In 2021, the index jumped to 12,673. A 2.6% increase in twelve months. Painful, but survivable. Then 2022: 13,680. That's 7.9% in a single year. The kind of jump that makes you rethink your meal plan, switch brands, skip the snacks.

2023 brought another leap to 15,020. That's a 9.8% climb. And 2024? It didn't ease off. It added another 226 points to land at 15,246.

Put those four years together and you see what happened: Wellington's food prices climbed 23.4% between 2020 and 2024. Nearly a quarter. In four years.

That's not abstract inflation. That's the difference between a $200 weekly shop and a $247 one. It's the reason families switched from fresh vegetables to frozen. The reason flatmates started meal-prepping in bulk. The reason retirees on fixed incomes started eating less meat.

The index doesn't capture taste or quality or variety. It just measures cost. But cost is what determines whether you buy what you want or what you can afford. And over fifty years, Wellington moved from one world to the other.

The worst part? There's no sign the climb is slowing. The 226-point rise in 2024 is smaller than 2023's surge, but it's still rising. Still compounding. Still making last year's budget obsolete.

Fifty years ago, food was a routine expense. Today, it's a line item families plan around, stress over, and sacrifice for. The index doesn't lie. It just counts. And what it's counted is half a century of groceries becoming unaffordable, one year at a time. (Source: Stats NZ, food-price-index-regional)