Listen to this article.
By Anita Dangazele
- Official price tracking shows a cabbage in Cape Town’s low-income shopping areas costs around R25 a head.
- A cabbage was found selling for R49.99, nearly double that price, at a Cape Town Spar earlier this year.
Cabbage is meant to be one of the cheapest, most reliable vegetables on a tight shopping list. At some stores, shoppers are paying nearly double what it should cost.
According to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, which tracks food prices every month at supermarkets and butcheries in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Philippi, Langa, Delft and Dunoon, a cabbage in the city currently costs around R25. Across the country, most retailers sell a whole cabbage for between R12 and R25.
Earlier this year, a photo went viral of a single cabbage priced at R49.99 at a Cape Town Spar, nearly double the normal price. The image, captioned “The cost of living in Cape Town? R49,99 for cabbage?”, sparked a wave of price comparisons from shoppers around the country: R12 in KwaZulu-Natal, R10 in Gauteng, R22 at Woolworths, R10 at Food Lovers Market, and as little as R5 to R10 from street vendors.
Several commenters said the issue wasn’t Cape Town itself, but the specific retailer, with more than one shopper naming Spar as consistently pricier than Checkers, Pick n Pay, Woolworths or Shoprite.
If you’re seeing a cabbage priced anywhere close to R50, it’s worth checking a different shop, or a street vendor, before you buy. Based on what’s actually being tracked and paid across the country, that price is roughly double what most South Africans are spending on the exact same vegetable.
Pictured above: A cabbage priced at R49.99 at a Cape Town Spar, in a photo that went viral earlier this year.
Image source: TikTok / @nnukulashy
