BEEF and lamb retail prices have trended starkly against most other food commodities in quarterly consumer price index data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Latest ABS data for the September quarter clearly shows that softening cattle and sheep prices are beginning to have an impact on the price of red meat at the retail level.

Episode 3 analyst Matt Dalgleish reports that the beef CPI indicator shows prices falling by 1.2 percent between the second and third quarter this year (see graph below), while the lamb CPI indicator has showed an even greater deflationary impact with prices dropping by 4.7pc over the three-month cycle.

Pork and poultry meat, more reliant on grain, is still displaying inflationary pressures of around 1pc, and the fish CPI is up by 3.5pc.

This led to the combined Meat & Seafood indicator showing overall meat prices rising by 2.7pc over the September quarter, Mr Dalgleish reported.

The Fruit & Vegetable category was the only other food item to show price declines for the third quarter of 2023, with the combined index down by 3.7pc.

Vegetables are dragging the combined index lower with a 5.6pc drop versus the 1pc easing shown by the fruit index.

Comparison to CPI levels on an annual basis (graph at top of page) highlighted that versus 2022 price levels, beef prices are down by 1.6pc, lamb is down by 2.7pc and vegetable prices have eased 2.4pc.

Annually, cheese prices are still running the most inflationary trend with CPI levels up 13.5pc, while milk was up more than 9pc, eggs 9pc, fish 7pc and alcohol 7pc.

Click here to view Ep3’s original article.