As I wrapped up my last blog post of 2007, about how inflation is going to be a big issue this year, I wondered how long it would take for the next wave of inflation to hit.
It turns out that I didn't have to wait very long. I just came back from the downstairs Koufu coffeeshop to get some typical "tea-break items" of the usual sort - carrot cake, spring rolls, this kind of thing. The pricing used to be like this : you can buy an individual item for 70 cents, or you can buy in terms of 3 for $2 (which works out to 66 and 2/3 cents each). The price is now 80 cents per piece, and there are no more 3 for $2 offers or anything of the sort.
So I went back and calculated the following :
70 to 80 cents (per piece pricing) = 14.3% increase
66.66 to 80 cents (as per prior offer) = 20.0% increase
I asked the woman at the counter when the price increase took effect. She replied that the price was changed just today. 1st Jan 2008. I usually bought in terms of 3 (the former offer price). So from my point of view, the price of food had just gone up by 20%. I'd suppose it's an early harbinger of things to come.