The price of food fell by 0.9% in August bringing annual prices down to 4.6 percent. Excluding the blips in June and July (which you could put down to inclement weather), you can see a downward trend in annual food prices that started in about September 2009.

Three of the five subgroups were down on the month, with grocery food prices down by 1.3%, fruit and vegetable prices down 3.3%, and meat, poultry and fish down 0.4%. Restaurant meals and ready to eat foods wer up 0.3 percent on the month, and non alcoholic beverages were up 1.0%.

The largest falls on the month were from fresh chicken (down 9.1%), tomatoes (down 10.0%), and strawberries (down 21.7%). Unfortunately for roast lovers, lamb was up 4.6% and pork was up 6.2%. And if you wanted to wash that down with some fizzy, soft drinks were up 1.3%.

On the year, four of the five subgroups were up, led by grocery food (up 4.4%) followed by meat, poultry and fish (up 9.2%), non-alcoholic beverages (up 7.9%) and restaurant meals and ready to eat foods (up 3.7%). Fruit and vegetables, which have been the driver of much of the variability in food prices, were down 1.1% on the year. Within this group, vegetable prices were down 5.1% while fruit prices were up 7.0%.

Looking at individual items, lettuce is down 15.9% on the year and cheddar cheese is down 21.1%. In terms of recipes, you have to try a lettuce and cheese toasted sandwich (white bread). I know it sounds like a combination that just won’t work, but I had one at 3am one morning at the pie kart that used to be at top of Queen Street (showing my age) and it just hit the spot. My mate Hugo swore by them and convinced me to have one. I have never quite been able to replicate the sensation but perhaps the situation just needs to be right.