Bad weather pushes up food prices
- Details
- Category: Ningbo Business
- Published: Tuesday, 15 January 2013 09:33
Driven by the holiday consumption and the recent snowy weather, the prices of non-staple food in Ningbo saw an average of 10 percent rise last Friday.
The local food market was caught off guard by the sudden dump of snow last Friday. Bad weather has aggravated harvest and supply problems for the vegetable market, pushing prices, especially leafy vegetables, up by nearly 30 percent. Among the vegetables, the prices for pakchoi cabbages, green cabbages and spring unions rose 80 percent, 50 percent and 30percent respectively over the previous month.
Major supermarkets in Ningbo, which are known for the reasonable prices for non-staple foods, had to hike their vegetable prices due to the undersupply caused by continuous cold weather. The price information released by Sanjiang Supermarket shows an overall price hike of vegetables last Friday. Their cabbages, lettuce, and green peppers saw an average rise of about 15 percent while the price of radish, purple sweet potatoes, potatoes and seasoning vegetables like tubers and ginger increased by an average of 10 percent. The price for mushrooms and white gourds rose by 5 percent.
Despite of the rising prices, the overall market supply remained stable. The vegetables supply to the wholesale market was reported as 1600 tons and the average wholesale price stood at 2.4 yuan per kilogram, up nearly 10 percent than usual.
In contrast to vegetables, prices of meat, poultry, seafood and soy products remained stable on Friday.
In order to ensure market supply and price stability in the extreme weather, the local food authorities called for local wholesale markets to keep stable supply of non-staple foods and prepare for the coming continuous bad weather. As frequent freezing rain and snowstorm in north China, Ningbo will guide its wholesale vegetable market to purchase peppers, peanuts, eggplants, green melons, plums, beans, and other vegetables from southern provinces including Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan and Jiangxi provinces. The current market reserves for vegetables reached nearly 10,000 tons, an adequate figure to meet one week's consumption of the city.
