You're spending $15,305 a year on food if you live in the South Island. That's up from $12,509 in 2020. Nearly three grand more coming out of your account every year.

Politicians talk about inflation like it's abstract. The South Island food price data makes it concrete. Your grocery bill went up 22% in four years. Inflation over the same period? About 23%.

Do the maths. You're spending more money to buy roughly the same amount of food you bought in 2020. Maybe less, depending on where you shop and what you cut from your list. (Source: Stats NZ, food-price-index-regional)

The year-by-year trajectory tells the story. In 2021, costs crept to $12,766. Annoying, but manageable. Then 2022 hit: $13,735. That's when people started noticing. By 2023, it was $15,064. This year, $15,305.

Here's what that looks like in your kitchen. In 2020, you might've spent $240 a week on groceries. Now it's $294. Except that extra $54 doesn't buy you anything extra. It just keeps you even with what you had before.

The South Island isn't unique in this. But 50 years of data shows something worth paying attention to: food costs don't go backwards. The 1975 baseline was tiny by today's standards. Every decade since, the line goes up. Sometimes gradually. Sometimes in sharp jumps, like the past four years.

What makes this moment different is the speed. The jump from 2022 to 2023 alone was $1,329. That's $25 a week, almost overnight. Families adjusted. They bought less meat, switched brands, skipped treats. Then 2024 added another $241 on top.

The nominal figures are clear: South Islanders are spending thousands more per year than they were before COVID. But in real terms, accounting for what that money actually buys, you're standing still at best. More likely, you're going backwards, because the data doesn't capture how people change their buying habits when prices surge.

This is 15,305 reasons why the cost-of-living conversation won't go away. Not because people are complaining about small increases. Because they're spending more money and eating worse than they did four years ago. The numbers prove it.