Meat was the biggest driver of food inflation after surging to a 25-month high of 6.6% year-on-year and monthly up by 2.2% month-on-month in June 2025.
The disease-induced supply constraints underpinned the upswing in meat prices in the past three months
The foot and-mouth (FMD) disease outbreak created a short supply crunch due to the inability to slaughter livestock, mainly cattle, while the earlier ban on Brazilian chicken imports due to bird flu outbreak caused panic in the market as it is the major source of mechanically deboned meat (MDM), which is used in manufacturing of products such as polony, etc.
SA is a net importer of MDM due to lack of domestic capacity.
Nonetheless, South Africa has since partially lifted the Brazilian chicken import ban, which should ease pressure on prices in the medium term.
While the FMD situation remains sticky with new outbreaks reported in the Free State and persisting in KZN, recent developments are that slaughtering has resumed in major feedlots with producer prices already ‘off the boil’ early in July 2025.
South Africa’s food inflation edged higher to 3% y-o-y in June relative to May’s 2.8% y-o-y, underpinned by gain in the core items and food and non-alcoholic beverages (FNAB) but still came below expectations of a 3.1% spike.
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