While grocery prices for most household items in Hong Kong are surging from pandemic levels, the city’s wine drinkers might be relieved to learn that wine price not only did not hike up, but rather among 260 supermarket items had the sharpest drop last year, according to a survey by the city’s consumer watchdog.
The Consumer Council released its latest survey on Hong Kong’s grocery price and found that the average price of a basket of 260 items from the supermarkets increased by 2.1% over 2021, the steepest hike since 2013.
Nearly 70% of the goods or 175 items increased in price, with the top three product groups being butter (15.4%), tea bags (11.7%) and cheese (10.2%).
Interestingly, despite rises in dry goods including glass bottles, aluminum and corks, the Beer and Wines category had the largest cut in price in 2022 (-3.1%), and within the category, average price of wine fell by 5.1%, leading the council to conclude it has “the largest reduction in aggregate average price across all groups during the year”.
The council surveyed five everyday wines from three of the city’s biggest supermarket chains, ParknShop, Wellcome and Aeon. They are Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet, Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, Yellow Tail Merlot, Carlo Rossi and Mouton Cadet. The average price of 4 out of the 5 wines dropped by up to 12.6%.
The survey result on wine however did not reflect wines sold on trade at restaurants or retail shops as wine importers in the city generally said price hikes of up to 20%, as a result of increased costs on dry goods and supply chain bottlenecks.
