FOOD DEARER IN SYDNEY CITY

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 October 1948, Page 8

FOOD DEARER IN SYDNEY CITY

SYDNEY, October 17.

The Sunday roast - dinner in most Sydney homes today cost 3s 6d, or more, above the cost of last Sunday’s midday meal. The reason is the skyrocketing of meat and vegetable prices in most of the city and surburban shops. Potatoes have virtually disappeared from the shops during the past weekend. This has been due, it is alleged to their being withheld from the market in anticipation of price rises. The chief substitute, pumpkin, went to one shilling per pound. Because of a beef shortage, some butchers were selling beef at 3d per lb, and more, above the legal price ceiling which still exists. A leg of lamb, which cost 6s last Sunday, rose to 7s 3d this week.

A survey of the price rises in vegetables indicates that enough vegetables for a Sunday dinner would cost 2s Id more than they did last week.

The press is claiming that the prices of Sydney foodstuffs have reached an all-time level. Chain Score grocers controlling, nearly 600 shops in Sydney and its suburbs have increased the prices of practically all uncontrolled grocery items. The increases, which range from Id on scores of lines to Is on a bottle of culinary essence, were agreed to at a conference of chain store grocers. On September 20, about 180 commodities, representing thousands of lines of groceries, were released from Government control.