- Milk and maas cost R67 a month per child and fruit R55, almost half of a R261 food bill.
- Foods on the menu cost about R15 a month more per older child than a year ago, our estimate shows.
In a crèche child’s food bill, milk and fruit cost the most. Milk, maas and fruit together make up almost half of what it costs to feed a child aged 2 to 6, according to the detailed table behind a new nutrition costing released on Thursday, 15 October.
The Early Childhood Development Nutrition Basket was released by Zero2Five Trust, the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group and dietitian Philippa Barnard, prices the foods that national nutrition guidance says young children need at an early childhood development (ECD) centre.
The report makes use of September 2026 prices in supermarkets across the country where ECD practitioners buy food. For a child aged 2 to 6, the food costs R13.06 a day, or R261.30 over a 20-day month.
Here is where the R13.06 a day goes, according to the table. The monthly amount per child is in brackets:
Milk and maas: R3.36 a day (R67.12 a month), about 26%
Fruit: R2.75 (R54.94), about 21%
Starchy foods (maize meal, porridge, bread, rice and potatoes): R2.35 (R47.04), about 18%
Vegetables: R2.04 (R40.73), about 16%
Eggs and tinned pilchards: R1.32 (R26.33), about 10%
Beans, lentils and soya mince: R0.71 (R14.22), about 5%
Margarine, oil and peanut butter: R0.51 (R10.27), about 4%
Salt: R0.03 (R0.67)
The daily amounts are rounded, so they add up to R13.07. The biggest single cost is milk, at R2.15 a day. Bananas come next at R1.80, then maas at R1.21. In the example 20-child centre, milk alone costs R809.42 a month and bananas R647.26.
What does that buy? The table gives each food’s weight per child for the month. Spread over the 20 days, Scrolla’s calculation from the table works out to about 130ml of milk and 75ml of maas a day, 90g of banana and 60g of apple. Eggs come to four a month, about one every five days.
Fruit and milk cost more per kilogram or litre than the staples. Bananas cost R19.98 a kilogram, apples R15.82, milk R16.40 a litre and maas R16.11. Maize meal costs R9.79 a kilogram, potatoes R10.02 and rice R13.15.
Several of the foods have also become more expensive. According to the Pietermaritzburg group’s September food price index, onions cost 66% more than a year ago, potatoes 34%, bananas 23%, carrots 19% and tomatoes 18%. Tinned pilchards cost 11% more. Maize meal is 11% cheaper, rice 10% cheaper and sugar beans 15% cheaper. Milk and apples cost about the same.
Of the 20 foods in the basket that the index gives, last year’s prices make up about 88% of the bill, feeding a child aged 2 to 6 costs about R15 a month more than a year ago, or about 76 cents a day. Bananas account for about R6.70 of the rise and onions for about R3.70. This is Scrolla’s estimate. If the other foods, Morvite porridge, lentils, soya mince and spinach, cost the same as a year ago, a day’s food for an older child cost about R12.30 then, against R13.06 now.
The groups say foods can be swapped for local ones where the nutritional purpose of the meal can be kept. They will track the basket’s price every month from October. The costing covers food only, not labour, cooking fuel, water or equipment.
The government’s ECD subsidy for 2026/27 includes R9.60 a child a day for food, and it was not raised in the 2026 budget.
