How Much Does a Month of Food Cost in Cape Town?
Basket · July 2026
for 7 people
On the month
+1.3%
Year on year
−0.1%
Left after food
of one minimum wage
What the basket costs against what people earn
This is the comparison PMBEJD builds the index around, and it is the reason a food basket is worth publishing at all. A month of food for 7 people, set beside one full month on the national minimum wage.
Cape Town food basket
R5,367.30
National minimum wage, one month
R5,562.32
Left for everything else
R195.02
the full bar is one minimum wage, R5,562.32
Food alone takes 96.5% of a full month's minimum wage, leaving R195.02 for rent, electricity, transport, school and everything else.
- A minimum wage shared in a family
- R1,463.77One wage supports 3.8 people on average across South Africa.
- Food poverty line, per person
- R855.00Against R766.76 a head in this basket.
- Child Support Grant
- R580.00Paid to 12.58 million children. Below the food poverty line of R855.
Every food in the basket
The full list PMBEJD prices for Cape Town in July 2026, at the pack sizes it tracks. Sort by any column; filter by category.
| Item⇅ | Quantity | Price⇅ | On the month⇅ | %⇅ | Year on year⇅ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maize meal | 30kg | R323.15 | +R38.18 | +13% | −12% |
| Rice | 10kg | R143.57 | +R2.75 | +2% | −14% |
| Cake Flour | 10kg | R124.49 | −R1.33 | −1% | −2% |
| White sugar | 10kg | R233.32 | −R0.42 | 0% | +3% |
| Sugar beans | 5kg | R244.12 | −R7.09 | −3% | −12% |
| Samp | 5kg | R77.91 | +R2.17 | +3% | +4% |
| Cooking oil | 5L | R167.27 | +R0.73 | 0% | +4% |
| Salt | 1kg | R9.99 | +R0.08 | +1% | −2% |
| Potatoes | 10kg | R88.50 | −R4.35 | −5% | −13% |
| Onions | 10kg | R150.45 | +R1.59 | +1% | +6% |
| Frozen chicken portions | 10kg | R445.73 | +R15.01 | +3% | +8% |
| Curry powder | 200g | R39.82 | −R2.33 | −6% | −3% |
| Stock cubes | 24 cubes x2 | R47.48 | +R0.83 | +2% | +3% |
| Soup | 400g x2 | R52.42 | −R2.22 | −4% | −6% |
| Tea | 250g | R29.66 | −R1.33 | −4% | −4% |
| Full cream milk | 6L | R90.98 | +R3.42 | +4% | +1% |
| Maas | 4L | R66.49 | +R0.08 | 0% | +3% |
| Eggs | 60 eggs | R147.81 | +R4.04 | +3% | +8% |
| Chicken feet | 2kg | R43.98 | −R1.25 | −3% | −7% |
| Gizzards | 2kg | R86.23 | −R0.50 | −1% | +5% |
| Chicken livers | 2kg | R63.48 | +R1.50 | +2% | +2% |
| Beef liver | 2kg | R115.23 | −R0.50 | 0% | +14% |
| Beef | 2kg | R197.73 | +R8.00 | +4% | +1% |
| Wors | 2kg | R96.23 | +R7.00 | +8% | +3% |
| Beef tripe | 2kg | R77.65 | −R1.33 | −2% | −5% |
| Fish | 2kg | R107.13 | −R5.52 | −5% | −3% |
| Tomatoes | 6kg | R184.86 | +R3.49 | +2% | +22% |
| Carrots | 5kg | R65.43 | +R0.48 | +1% | +29% |
| Butternut | 10kg | R101.08 | +R14.54 | +17% | +1% |
| Spinach | 8 bunches | R125.01 | −R1.45 | −1% | −3% |
| Cabbage | 2 heads | R51.81 | +R0.33 | +1% | +3% |
| Green pepper | 2kg | R63.07 | −R5.27 | −8% | −10% |
| Cremora | 800g | R56.99 | +R1.58 | +3% | −5% |
| Tinned pilchards | 400g x6 | R155.44 | +R4.00 | +3% | +8% |
| Canned beans | 410g x6 | R87.44 | −R2.50 | −3% | −2% |
| Bananas | 4kg | R69.96 | −R3.33 | −5% | −1% |
| Apples | 3kg | R50.65 | +R6.00 | +13% | +3% |
| Oranges | 7kg | R55.83 | −R3.53 | −6% | −12% |
| Margarine | 1kg | R39.65 | −R2.08 | −5% | −3% |
| Peanut butter | 400g x2 | R80.15 | −R3.00 | −4% | +2% |
| Polony | 2.5kg | R64.59 | −R0.29 | 0% | +10% |
| Apricot jam | 900g | R40.74 | +R1.00 | +3% | 0% |
| White bread | 25 loaves | R428.98 | +R10.42 | +2% | +1% |
| Brown bread | 25 loaves | R374.81 | −R8.33 | −2% | −6% |
| All 44 items | R5,367.31 | the published basket total | |||
Every price is what PMBEJD's data collectors recorded off the shelves in Cape Town for that month, at the pack size shown verified. These are basket prices, not any one shop's price — we do not publish supermarket-specific pricing, because a figure attributed to a named store would be unsourced and stale within a week.
What moved in July 2026
Ranked by rands, not percent. A 13% move on a bag of salt is R1.30; a 13% move on 30kg of maize meal is what a household actually feels.
Up the most
- Maize meal 30kgR323.15+R38.18+13%
- Frozen chicken portions 10kgR445.73+R15.01+3%
- Butternut 10kgR101.08+R14.54+17%
- White bread 25 loavesR428.98+R10.42+2%
- Beef 2kgR197.73+R8.00+4%
Down the most
- Brown bread 25 loavesR374.81−R8.33−2%
- Sugar beans 5kgR244.12−R7.09−3%
- Fish 2kgR107.13−R5.52−5%
- Green pepper 2kgR63.07−R5.27−8%
- Potatoes 10kgR88.50−R4.35−5%
The basket over the last year
Every monthly PMBEJD release for Cape Town since August 2025. Across those 12 months the basket moved R55.71 up in total — which is a far smaller number than any single month's swing suggests.
- Aug 25
- Sep 25
- Oct 25
- Nov 25
- Dec 25
- Jan 26
- Feb 26
- Mar 26
- Apr 26
- May 26
- Jun 26
- Jul 26
Two things on this site moved in the same window and are worth reading alongside it: the general fuel levy relief was withdrawn on 1 July, and City electricity tariffs rose the same day. Both feed a food chain that runs on diesel and refrigeration. We show them together as context, not as a claim that one caused the other — a fixed basket bought in a handful of Cape Town suburbs moves for many reasons at once.
Food, electricity, transport — the same wage
A food basket on its own is only half a story. What decides whether a Cape Town household gets through the month is the whole set of fixed costs landing on one wage, and this site happens to track most of them.
Start with the wage. One month at the national minimum wage is R5 562.32. The Cape Town food basket is R5 367.30. That is 96.5% of the wage gone on food alone, before a single unit of electricity, before a taxi fare, before rent.
Electricity is the next call. On the City's Domestic tariff a household paying R500 for prepaid gets about 121 units — and R500 is 9% of that same wage. The City's own tariffs rose on 1 July, and the fixed service charge rose faster than the energy rate, which means part of the bill now lands whether the household uses anything or not.
Transport is the third. Petrol came down 52 cents in August, but the general fuel levy relief that had been holding prices down through autumn was fully withdrawn on 1 July, restoring 429 cents a litre on petrol. Diesel went the other way entirely, up R1.38, and diesel is what moves food from farm to shelf.
Put plainly: the arithmetic does not work. The households PMBEJD tracks do not solve it by finding extra money — they solve it by buying less food, buying cheaper food, or going without. PMBEJD's own data shows the basket being under-bought rather than the shortfall being funded. That is what an affordability index measures, and it is why the number at the top of this page matters more than a supermarket special.
food
R5,367.30
96.5% of a minimum wage
the basket, July 2026
electricity
R500
9.0% of a minimum wage
buys 121 units on Domestic
fuel
R1,112
20.0% of a minimum wage
one 45-litre tank at R24.71/L
Each figure is read live from that page's own table, and each share is computed against the same R5,562.32 monthly minimum wage. The fuel line is illustrative — most households on this wage do not run a car — but it is what moves food to the shelf.
How the basket is measured, and why it isn't CPI
The Household Affordability Index is not a government statistic and it is not a supermarket survey. It is built by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group, and the way it is collected is the reason it is worth reading.
The basket was designed with women living on low incomes in the areas it covers — in Cape Town that means Gugulethu, Philippi, Khayelitsha, Langa, Delft and Dunoon. It holds the foods and the volumes those households said they try to secure each month for a family of seven. Prices are then tracked by women data collectors directly off the shelves of the supermarkets and butcheries those households actually use — 52 supermarkets and 36 butcheries nationally, chosen because they target the low-income market rather than because they are the biggest chains.
Crucially, the selection mirrors how people really shop. Brands and shops are switched month to month to find the cheapest option of reasonable quality, exactly as a household under pressure does. The basket is a fixed list of foods, not a fixed brand list.
That makes it a different instrument from the consumer price index, and the difference shows. Stats SA put annual food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation at 1.6% in June 2026. The Cape Town basket was down 0.1% year on year in July. Both are correct. CPI is a national index weighted across every income group and every food, including the things wealthier households buy; the basket is one fixed list of staples bought in six Cape Town townships. When they diverge, the gap is telling you that the average and the floor are moving differently.
Two honest caveats PMBEJD states itself, and we repeat rather than bury. The basket is not nutritionally complete — it is what households try to buy, not what they should eat. And it cannot be the basket for every low-income family; it is a reasonable proxy, not a census.
This basket · July 2026 · Cape Town
year on year, fixed 44-item low-income basket
Stats SA · June 2026 · national
food & non-alcoholic beverages, weighted across all incomes
Cape Town against the other cities
- SpringbokR6,110
- JohannesburgR5,764
- MthathaR5,670
- MtubatubaR5,649
- National average (weighted)R5,531
- Cape TownR5,367
- DurbanR5,309
- PietermaritzburgR5,174
The same basket, priced in each area in July 2026. Springbok is the most expensive at R6,109.75, Pietermaritzburg the cheapest at R5,173.57.
Reading a month's movement without over-reading it
A single month of this basket is a noisy number, and it is worth saying so on a page built around one.
The Cape Town basket rose R69.26 in July, which reads as bad news. Over the twelve months to July it fell R4.05. Both are true, and neither is a trend on its own. Fresh produce swings hard on seasonality and on a single harvest arriving; a 17% move in butternut or a 13% move in apples in one month is normal for those items, and it reverses as often as it persists.
The lines that actually move the total are the big ones. Maize meal at 30kg, frozen chicken portions at 10kg, and the two bread lines at 25 loaves each together account for well over a quarter of the basket. When those move, the total moves; when spinach moves, it mostly does not.
That is also why the movers section on this page ranks by rands rather than by percent. Ranking by percent would put salt and curry powder at the top of a page about whether a household can afford to eat.
We are not going to tell you what next month does. Maize typically eases after the April–May harvest and fresh produce typically firms through late winter, but PMBEJD publishes what was on the shelf, not a forecast, and neither do we.
Common questions
How much does a food basket cost in Cape Town?
R5 367.30 in July 2026, for a household of seven — that is the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group's Household Food Basket priced in Cape Town. It rose R69.26 (1.3%) on June, and is down R4.05 (0.1%) on July last year.
What is the PMBEJD Household Affordability Index?
A monthly index published by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group. It prices a fixed basket of 44 core foods, designed with women living on low incomes, at the supermarkets and butcheries those households actually shop at. Cape Town is reported separately alongside Johannesburg, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Springbok, Mtubatuba and Mthatha.
Can you feed a family on the minimum wage in South Africa?
Not comfortably, on these numbers. One month at the national minimum wage is R5 562.32. The Cape Town food basket is R5 367.30 — 96.5% of the wage, leaving R195.02 for rent, electricity, transport and everything else. PMBEJD's point is that the shortfall is not funded; it is absorbed by buying less food.
Which foods rose most in Cape Town this month?
In July 2026 the biggest rand increases were maize meal (up R38.18 on 30kg), frozen chicken portions (up R15.01 on 10kg) and butternut (up R14.54 on 10kg). The biggest falls were brown bread (down R8.33 on 25 loaves), sugar beans and fish. The page ranks by rands rather than percent, because a large percentage move on a small item does not change what a household can afford.
Why is this different from the official inflation rate?
Because they measure different things. Stats SA's consumer price index is national and weighted across every income group; this basket is a fixed list of staples priced in six Cape Town townships for a household of seven. Stats SA put annual food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation at 1.6% in June 2026 while the Cape Town basket was down 0.1% year on year in July. Both are right — the average and the floor move differently.
How often is this updated?
Monthly. PMBEJD publishes late in each month — the July 2026 release came out on 29 July. This page follows that schedule, and the stamp at the top turns amber on its own if a release is missed.
Where is the data collected?
For Cape Town, in Gugulethu, Philippi, Khayelitsha, Langa, Delft and Dunoon. Prices are recorded by women data collectors directly off the shelves of supermarkets and butcheries that serve the low-income market, switching brands and shops to find the cheapest option of reasonable quality — the way households under pressure actually shop.
How does Cape Town compare to Johannesburg?
Cape Town's basket was R5 367.30 in July 2026 against Johannesburg's R5 763.70 — about R396 cheaper. Of the seven areas PMBEJD tracks, Springbok was the most expensive at R6 109.75 and Pietermaritzburg the cheapest at R5 173.57. The national weighted average was R5 530.52, so Cape Town sits just below it.
Methodology and sources
Every basket figure on this page comes from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group's Household Affordability Index, taken from the monthly PDF releases published at pmbejd.org.za. Each release seeded here carries its own URL, so any figure can be traced to the document it came from.
Twelve releases are loaded, August 2025 through July 2026, giving the full item-level history rather than a single month. They were extracted programmatically rather than retyped, and two independent checks were run before anything was published. First, a chain check: every release states the previous month's total, and in all twelve that stated figure matches the previous release's own published total exactly. Second, a sum check: the 44 item prices add up to the published basket total in every month, to within five cents of rounding. A third check falls out of the release itself — the Cape Town column in the seven-city comparison table matches the Cape Town page's own total.
The affordability benchmarks — the national minimum wage, the child support grant, the food poverty line — are printed in the same PMBEJD release, which carries them from the Department of Employment and Labour, SASSA and Stats SA respectively.
The inflation comparison uses Stats SA's consumer price index for June 2026, the most recent release at the time of writing. It is national and it lags the basket by a month; both facts are stated wherever the figure appears, because comparing a July Cape Town basket to a June national index without saying so would be misleading.
Everything on this page is badged verified: every figure is printed in a published release. There is no reconstruction here and no estimation. What we do not have, we leave out — there is no supermarket-specific pricing on this page, and there will not be.
- PMBEJD Household Affordability Index, July 2026 (PDF) — the source we follow, published 29 July 2026
- 12 monthly releases loaded, August 2025 to July 2026
- Stats SA consumer price index, June 2026 — national, one month behind the basket
Read next
electricity
The other bill on the same wage
R500 of prepaid buys about 121 units on the City's Domestic tariff.
Read →fuel
What moves food to the shelf
Diesel rose R1.38 in August even as petrol fell — and diesel is the food chain's fuel.
Read →dams
The water behind the food
The Western Cape's dams irrigate the Boland as well as filling Cape Town's taps.
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