The big stink about ginger prices

One of the few positive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has been the attention it has brought to food prices in the country and, more specifically, the disparity that exists between producer and retailer prices.

The most recent example is the dramatic increase in retail prices for garlic and ginger. published an article in which we asked a number of experts which niche fresh produce held the most potential in terms of future demand and price; one of the products mentioned was ginger. However, I don’t think anyone at the time would have seen the price of ginger jumping fourfold, from around R100/kg to R400/kg, in less than a year. This type of price increase takes our general understanding of the dynamics of supply and demand to the extreme, and ultimately raises the question of how we should balance our expectations of ethics and fairness with the dynamics of the free market.