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Speaker 1: Now food prices are up four point four percent in

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Speaker 1: the year to May. Brad Olsen is informetrics principle economist and.

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Speaker 2: With us now, hey, Brad, good evening.

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Speaker 1: So largely driven by dairy, meat, poultry and fish.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.

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Speaker 3: I mean you've seen those continued cost pressures. You look

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Speaker 3: at the likes of butter up something like fifty two

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Speaker 3: percent over the last year. Again, your beef prices, your

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Speaker 3: other dairy have all gone up. But that four point

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Speaker 3: four percent food price inflation over the last year, that

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Speaker 3: is the fastest now since the end of twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 2: It's not back to the peak that it was, but it.

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Speaker 3: Is starting to make us feel a little bit more

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Speaker 3: uncomfortable given all of those price changes that have come through.

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Speaker 3: What is clear looking at some of the numbers is

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Speaker 3: that there's a few very specific items like we've just

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Speaker 3: highlighted that are increasing and they're making things uncomfortable across

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Speaker 3: the wider shop that people are probably doing. There's not

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Speaker 3: quite as much intensity, but there are just some really

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Speaker 3: quite thorny issues coming through that is prompting people to

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Speaker 3: ask questions of is their further inflation pressure to come.

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Speaker 2: We thought we'd got rid of it, but perhaps not.

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Speaker 1: Do you worry about them? I mean, this is obviously

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Speaker 1: higher than the band and higher than what we're seeing

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Speaker 1: across the economies.

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Speaker 2: Are you worried about this a little bit?

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Speaker 3: And I think it's it's not just the food prices either.

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Speaker 3: You look at the likes of energy costs that are

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Speaker 3: coming forward. Are the likes of electricity up I think

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Speaker 3: eight point seven percent odd roughly over the last year,

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Speaker 3: Gas prices for households up well around fifteen percent over

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Speaker 3: the last year.

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Speaker 2: All of those.

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Speaker 3: Become very uncomfortable and they're pretty vital costs. You can't

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Speaker 3: choose not to pay them. And so the fact that

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Speaker 3: you've got all of that, the fact that in the

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Speaker 3: last week you've seen with this Israel Iran conflict, you know,

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Speaker 3: oil prices are spiking. That's probably going to come through

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Speaker 3: and hit petrol prices in New Zealand. The fact that

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Speaker 3: you know the Reserve Bank last time they met, someone

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Speaker 3: on the committee was a holdout and took it to

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Speaker 3: a vote and said, I don't want to change interest

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Speaker 3: rates because I'm a bit worried about what's coming forward.

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Speaker 3: All of that suggests that again we're just in the

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Speaker 3: sort of uneasy position where the economy doesn't feel like

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Speaker 3: it's doing well, and so on that basis, you'd think

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Speaker 3: that there's further interest rate cuts to come, but inflationary

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Speaker 3: pressure still too hot, looking like it's reaccelerating still, and

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Speaker 3: if that's the case, it makes that interest rate conversation

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Speaker 3: quite difficult.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I would say bets are on a.

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Speaker 3: Pause yet at the moment, I think increasingly likely that

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Speaker 3: you see a pause in July, and it may well

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Speaker 3: be an extended pause.

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Speaker 2: They might not cut again.

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Speaker 3: I don't think we can make that call definitively yet,

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Speaker 3: but even financial markets have pulled back their expectations. At

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Speaker 3: the end of last week, there was only roughly I

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Speaker 3: think a sixteen percent chance of a further interest rate

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Speaker 3: cut in July. So everyone is sort of taking a

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Speaker 3: breath and trying to assess what all of this means.

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Speaker 1: Now, do you want to explain to us this extremely

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Speaker 1: early appearance at the gates of Field days.

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Speaker 3: I heard that I was sort of taken to task

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Speaker 3: over the last week, although you said some lovely things

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Speaker 3: about me later that evening, I remember your answer was

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Speaker 3: sort of giving me all sort of planes, which was

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Speaker 3: we think, we think you are the life of the party.

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Speaker 2: I'm glad. I'm glad that other people think of the

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Speaker 2: life of the party.

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Speaker 1: By the way, as a judge, do you do a

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Speaker 1: good job?

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Speaker 2: Well, I'd like to think so.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I've done my training and similar But I mean, look,

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Speaker 3: turning to the field Day's piece, I had some meetings

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Speaker 3: early on in the morning. Field days traffic is absolutely menic,

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Speaker 3: and I thought, look, if I want to get there

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Speaker 3: and actually have a you know, be able to get

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Speaker 3: through my meetings, I'll show up really early.

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Speaker 2: I'll get an early park, I'll hid inside, get.

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Speaker 3: A coffee, get set up for the early Oh, I think,

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Speaker 3: to be honest, I parked up at about five point

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Speaker 3: fifty eight am.

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Speaker 2: I was there real early. Hey, you don't drink a

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Speaker 2: I don't. I mean, I look on an economist. So

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Speaker 2: have you seen the price of the stuff? Yeah? Oh,

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Speaker 2: good from you, Brad. I love it.

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Speaker 1: You live by your principles, Brad, No, you are you.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how you have all the energy, but

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Speaker 1: now I figured it out. Brad Elson, Thank you, Infametrics

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Speaker 1: principal economist.

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