By Dylan Bettencourt
- Maize meal fell 16% over the past year. Beef liver jumped 24%. The food that got cheaper cannot replace protein.
- Three in ten South African boys under five are already stunted. One in four girls.
South Africa’s food prices are moving in two directions. The cheapest food on the shelf got cheaper. The food a child’s body needs to grow got more expensive.
A 30kg bag of maize meal costs R298.08 this April, down 16% from R355.18 a year ago. Rice fell 18%. Sugar beans fell 16%.
But protein moved the other way. Beef liver costs R132.50 for 2kg, up 24% from R107.12 in April 2025. Frozen chicken portions rose 12%, to R446.88 for 10kg. Gizzards went up 16%. Beef is up 12%.
The result is a plate that has changed without announcement. More pap. Less protein. The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group found in its April 2026 Household Affordability Index that low-income families underspend on basic nutritional food by at least 18% every month.
The gap between what they eat and what they need is R1,166.90.
The consequences show up in children. The same report found that 30% of boys under five in South Africa are stunted. Among girls under five, the figure is 25%. Stunting is the permanent physical result of sustained poor nutrition in early childhood.
A cheaper bag of maize meal does not reverse it.
South Africa’s stunting rate was declining slowly before Covid-19. The South African Early Childhood Review 2024, published by the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town and partners including the Department of Basic Education, found that the pandemic erased those gains.
Cases of severe acute malnutrition rose 33% between 2020 and 2023, with 15,000 children hospitalised in 2022/23.
The April data shows both problems at once. The food that got cheaper is not the food that builds a child’s body. The food that does is out of reach.
Pictured above: A woman shopping.
Image source: Pexels
