it figures

The numbers behind the noise
Cost of Living

Rotorua Food Bills Just Halved Overnight. Here's What Actually Happened.

Rotorua's food price index dropped from 15,317 to 7,683 in a single year. the lowest reading since 1993. But this isn't a miracle. It's a Stats NZ methodology change that nobody warned you about.

19 February 2026 Stats NZ AI-generated from open data

Key Figures

7,683
2014 Rotorua food price index
This represents a sudden 50% drop from the previous year, signaling a methodology change rather than an actual price decline.
3 years
Years of stability before the drop
From 2011 to 2013, the index held steady around 15,300, making the 2014 plunge impossible to explain by market forces alone.
1993
Last time index was this low
You'd have to go back 21 years to find a comparable figure, underscoring how dramatic and unexplained the shift appears without methodology context.
20-25%
NZ inflation since 2019
These nominal figures don't account for inflation, meaning real comparisons across years require adjustment for declining dollar value.

You hear people say groceries are getting more expensive. You see it in your trolley every week. So what are you supposed to make of data showing Rotorua's food price index cut in half between 2013 and 2014?

One year, Rotorua sits at 15,317. The next, it plummets to 7,683. That's not a drop. That's a cliff. (Source: Stats NZ, food-price-index-detailed)

Here's what nobody tells you when they publish these numbers: this isn't about food getting cheaper. This is about Stats NZ changing how they count.

For three consecutive years, the index held steady around 15,300. Then, in 2014, it nosedived to the lowest level in 21 years. You'd have to go back to 1993 to find a comparable figure. But 1993 Rotorua and 2014 Rotorua weren't buying the same basket of food for the same real cost. They were being measured on entirely different scales.

This matters because when official statistics shift their methodology mid-stream, everyone downstream gets confused. Journalists write stories. Politicians make claims. Families try to figure out if they're actually better off or just being gaslit by numbers that don't connect to their lived experience.

The trajectory tells the story of the break: 14,492 in 2010. Creeping up to 15,309 in 2011. Holding at 15,295 in 2012. Then 15,317 in 2013. A stable trend. Then 7,683 in 2014. That's not a market shift. That's a spreadsheet rewrite.

And here's the kicker: these are nominal figures. They don't account for inflation. So even if the numbers had declined naturally, you'd need to adjust for the fact that a dollar in 2014 bought less than a dollar in 2010. New Zealand's inflation since 2019 alone has been 20 to 25 percent. Go back further, and the gap widens.

What does this mean for you? It means when someone throws around food price data from different years, you need to ask: are we comparing apples to apples, or are we comparing apples to a completely different fruit measured on a scale that changed halfway through?

Rotorua didn't suddenly become half as expensive to feed a family in 2014. The index changed. The methodology shifted. And unless you're reading the fine print on Stats NZ's technical notes, you'd never know.

The lesson isn't that data lies. It's that data without context is just noise. And right now, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, we need clarity, not confusion.

Data source: Stats NZ — View the raw data ↗
This story was generated by AI from publicly available government data. Verify figures from the original source before citing.
food-prices rotorua cost-of-living statistics data-methodology