Melburnians were shocked to discover the price of a common grocery item had skyrocketed in one local shop store during the week.
An outraged customer took to social media to share the incredibly high price of an iceberg lettuce at a supermarket in the Melbourne suburb of Epping.
“And so it begins…… this is in Epping, a suburb of Melbourne this week,” the woman posted to Facebook along with an image of lettuces being sold for an astonishing $7.98 a head
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Other shocked Australians also expressed their disgust at the high price.
“What a joke, this lettuce must be made of gold,” one shocked user commented.
“This is terrible!” another said.
The Facebook post comes as food price inflation hits an 11-year-high in Australia.
The latest consumer price index data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows food prices have had their highest year-on-year rise in more than a decade.
The ABS figures released on Wednesday show the annual rate of inflation soared to its highest level since 2001, with food prices up by 4.3 per cent over the year to March, and 2.8 per cent from the previous quarter.
In an analysis of the data, agribusiness specialist Rabobank said the climb is the highest year-on-year increase in food price inflation since 2011.
Senior analyst at Rabobank Michael Harvey said horticulture was a major contributor to the food price hikes, with vegetables prices up 6.6 per cent and fruit 4.9 per cent higher year on year.
“Higher cost of meat, seafood and dairy were also significant contributors to food price inflation in the quarter,” Mr Harvey said.
Rabobank found there was broad-based price inflation across the “food complex”, with rises recorded across all of the major grocery food product categories.