In April 2026, Johannesburg remains the most expensive city among South Africa’s three major metros for groceries for 10 consecutive months.
Durban in KwaZulu-Natal has overtaken Cape Town in the Western Cape as the second-most-expensive major metro for the third consecutive month.
This is according to data from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity (PMBEJD) group, which tracks the cost of a household food basket across the three major provinces.
The data is based on “on-the-ground” pricing for products across a variety of retailers in major cities, which serve as proxies for the provinces in question.
The PMBEJD report found that while 20 of the 44 tracked food items became cheaper or saw no increases year-on-year, the other 24 experienced price hikes, with seven items seeing double-digit inflation.
South Africa’s consumer inflation has remained muted at 3.1% in March 2026, up from the 3.0% recorded in February.
The annual rate for food & non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) slowed further to 3.6% in March from 3.7% in February and 4.4% in January.
Four of the 11 food & NAB categories are in deflationary territory, including fruits & nuts; vegetables; cereal products; and milk, other dairy products & eggs.
The milk, other dairy products & eggs category recorded its 10th successive month of deflation at -0.5% in March, slightly higher than February’s -0.7%.
Three products are cheaper than a year ago, namely fresh full-cream milk (currently in its 13th month of deflation at -0.4%), powdered milk (-5.5%), and eggs (-6.3%).
White rice, porridge, maize meal, basmati rice, instant noodles, brown bread and bread flour are cheaper than in March 2025.
The average price for a kilogram of white rice, for example, declined from R29.01 to R27.82 over the 12-month period.
Meat recorded its second monthly decrease, with beef prices moderating between February 2026 and March 2026.
Declines were recorded for stewing beef (-4.2%), steak (-2.0%), mince (-1.9%) and offal (-1.5%). Biltong fans can also breathe a sigh of relief, with prices edging lower by 0.2%.
The annual rate for meat also slowed, easing to 11.6% from 12.2% in February. Beef products registered lower rates.
Most notably, steak retreated from 28.6% in February to 24.1% in March and stewing beef from 26.9% to 22.6%. Pork bucked the trend, increasing from 17.3% to 19.5%. Bacon inflation was also up, from 2.2% to 4.2%.
Most expensive city for groceries
As of April 2026, the average cost of a household food basket in South Africa, comprising 44 essential items that reflect typical purchasing patterns, reached R5,452.09.
This is a 0.6% annual increase of R31.79 compared to April 2025. Month-on-month, however, the basket price increased by R123.56 compared to March 2026.
However, a breakdown of costs in each city shows that the change in food prices is greater in some areas than others.
In April 2026, the household food basket cost R5,664.94 in Johannesburg, a 1.9% increase of R105.48 from the previous year. This is also R79.28 more than the basket price of R5,585.67 in March.
Joburg’s basket price surpassed the national average by R212.85, making Johannesburg the most expensive metro for groceries.
Cape Town remains the cheapest of the cities for groceries, recording further decreases compared to the year before.
Cape Town’s food basket, recorded at R5,167.96, decreased by R148.60 (2.8%) from R5,316.56 in April 2025.
Durban’s food basket increased by R159.98 (3.0%) from R5,267.26 in March 2026 to R5,427.24 in April 2026.
Year-on-year, the Durban household food basket increased by only R2.02 from R5,425.23 in April 2025 to R5,427.24 in April 2026.
Basket comparison for April 2026
