CPI eases in January, but soaring beef prices drive food inflation

Rising beef prices continue to place pressure on consumer wallets amid the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) crisis in South Africa.

In January, the annual inflation rate for meat accelerated further to 31.2% year-on-year, and to 13,5%, from 12,6% in December 2025, according to Stats SA.

This is the highest print for the category since December 2017 (13,9%).

Three beef products recorded the highest annual rates of all 391 products in the CPI basket - beef steak (31,2%), stewing beef (30,3%) and beef mince (28,0%).

More affordable beef products were not immune to sharper price increases, with the rate for beef offal accelerating to 17,2% from 10,5% in December.

RELATED: SA's inflation slows to 3,5% in January

President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) a national disaster during his 2026 State of the Nation Address, and a mass vaccination campaign is underway, with the delivery of millions more vaccines expected over the next few months.

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Stephen Grootes interviews Frikkie Maré, CEO of the Red Meat Producers' Organisation (RPO).

Maré says the FMD outbreak has been a nightmare for farmers and of course is also hurting consumers, with beef prices up more than 30%.

He emphasizes that this figure is year-on-year and must be seen in context:

"If we go back a few months we saw that the inflation rate YoY for beef was already over the 20%, so even though now it's still high, it is busy easing back. We also have to keep in mind that this time last year we saw the carcass prices of beef and lamb start to increase sharply."

Maré's prediction is that we will see this increase for red meat come down relatively quickly over the next few months.

He says the industry was quite surprised when prices rose last year even before the FMD outbreak started spreading, to see that there was a higher demand for red meat, both beef and lamb, despite the cost.

Influencing this was likely the drop in interest rates giving consumers more money in their pockets.

As these prices never decreased, he points out, the figure for January is on the back of already relatively high December figures.

"Demand then actually stayed quite high. At this stage, we see lower demand in January and now also in February, but we think it will pick up again from March into the festive season around Easter."

For more detail, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article