Some essential food items have increased in price twice as fast as wages have risen over the past 10 years.

New Zealand has gone through a long period of food-price inflation, particularly propelled through the post-Covid period, but while price rises have slowed, the cost of food continues to increase.

Stats NZ data shows many types of food have hit record prices, including fresh fish at $49.62 a kilogram on average, lamb chops at $24.23 a kilogram, fried chicken at $17.12 for five pieces, fish and chips at $11.07, a fresh or toasted sandwich at $6.86, a meat pie at $6.61, two litres of milk at $5.12 and white sliced bread at $2.38 a loaf.

Others were at a level that was already a record, including long-grain white rice and canned pineapples.

Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said food prices would tend to track up over time, so the fact they were at record prices was not entirely unexpected.

He said what was notable was how much some staples had increased compared to the rate at which wages had risen.

Over the past decade, wages had risen by about 52 percent. By contrast, butter prices were up 157 percent since 2016, eggs were up 125 percent, a loaf of sliced white bread was up 120 percent, fish and chips were up 78 percent, mild cheese was up 75 percent, beef mince was up 71 percent, lamb chops were up 72 percent, potatoes were up 73 percent, cabbage 75 percent and two litres of milk 57 percent.

"We have seen some pretty widespread increases in the cost of household essentials. That includes things like butter, milk and meat products, but those are also the same products that New Zealand produces.

"We've seen strong demands, both onshore and offshore, and that's one of the big factors that's pushed up prices, not just here, but globally."

He said shoppers had probably not seen the full extent of the increases yet.

"We think there are a couple of factors that are going to keep prices for a lot of those essential food items high for a while. In part, we're still seeing strong demand for protein globally, so that is adding to the prices for a lot of dairy products, but also meat products.

"We're also seeing some big increases in production costs, especially in the food sector, where we've had big increases in fuel costs that are adding to on-farm operating costs. It's also rippling through transportation and packaging, and other parts of the supply chain.

"All of that eventually lands on the supermarket shelf. One thing we're conscious of, though, is that the full impact of that won't have been seen yet.

"We've still got pretty high fuel costs. While we did see some increases in prices in the June quarter, there's probably still some signs that there is going to be further increases."

He said there were positive aspects to that, though.

"These prices are certainly adding to the pressure on a lot of households' finances when they go through the checkout, but the other side of that is, if you are in these more rurally focused areas like Canterbury, Southland and Otago, those strong export earnings in the commodity sector are flowing through to higher incomes, spending and confidence more generally.

"Not just on the farm, but the regions more generally are seeing some pretty positive economic conditions."

Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said people should not expect food prices to fall.

"The rate of growth might slow, but it will still be growing. Slowing inflation rates don't actually mean anything to somebody who's paying still a ton of money for the basics."

He said many foods increasing quickly or at record prices were the basics of life for many New Zealand homes.

"It's making a sandwich, cooking a roast or whatever."

Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen said protein demand had pushed up prices across the world in recent times and that was showing through in the list of rapidly rising food costs.

"Demand from the US is still strong because of GLP-1s. You're seeing that move across the world, where people are not eating nearly as much, but when they eat, it needs to be quite nutrient dense and protein dense, so they've got enough to rebuild muscles.

"That's definitely keeping prices elevated and that comes through to New Zealand, because we're in that global marketplace."

He said even the price of plastic had increased, since oil prices rose, which would add to things like the cost of a bottle of milk.

An increase in vegetable oils had been felt in the international market and, while it was not showing up in supermarket prices in New Zealand yet, commercial producers of things like fish and chips might be feeling it.

Olsen said it was worth noting that food-price inflation had slowed to 1.9 percent in the latest update, which was the lowest since 2024.