In 2020, a family in Rotorua or Napier or New Plymouth spent $12,615 a year on groceries. Four years later, that same family is spending $15,443. That's not a headline number. It didn't make the news. But it's real money vanishing from real budgets across the rest of the North Island.

The climb started slowly. Between 2020 and 2021, food costs rose just $311. Annoying, but manageable. Then 2022 hit. Suddenly the bill jumped $1,066 in a single year. Supply chains, Ukraine, fuel costs: all the reasons you heard on repeat. But here's what didn't make the bulletins: the bill never came back down.

By 2023, another $1,370 disappeared from household budgets. And while 2024 brought the smallest increase in four years, just $81, that's not relief. That's treading water at a level 22% higher than where you started. The climb has plateaued, but nobody's climbing back down.

Go back further and the story gets sharper. In 1999, when this data series began, families in these regions spent a fraction of what they do now. Twenty-five years of steady increases, yes, but nothing like the acceleration of the past four. What used to move in predictable annual increments suddenly lurched forward in thousand-dollar jumps.

This matters because the rest of the North Island isn't Auckland. These are regions where incomes are lower, where a $2,828 increase over four years doesn't get absorbed by tech-sector wage growth or property windfalls. It gets absorbed by cutting back somewhere else: fewer nights out, delayed car repairs, KiwiSaver contributions paused.

And unlike rent, which you can split or postpone, or petrol, which you can drive less of, food is non-negotiable. You either eat or you don't. So when the food bill climbs 22% in four years, that's 22% less room for everything else in life.

The data doesn't tell you which households are feeling this hardest. But you can guess. Families with kids. Single parents. Anyone on a fixed income. Retirees whose superannuation didn't rise 22% over the same period. Anyone who was already tight before 2020 and is now wondering how they're supposed to make this work.

The rest of the North Island's food bill isn't falling. It's barely even stabilising. And that $15,443 annual cost? That's not the peak. That's just where we are right now. (Source: Stats NZ, food-price-index-regional)