The cost of living in South Africa has risen to astronomic levels, as the price of everyday essentials which are supposed to be the most affordable given how many people use to eat them every day, has become untenable for money.

To find out just how far the South African Rand can stretch these days, we decided to look at four popular grocery delivery apps – Checkers Sixty60, Pick n Pay ASAP!, Spar2U, and Woolworths Dash.

This comparison is strictly on prices listed on each of the apps, which may differ to the prices found in-store, but the convenience of such platforms means many are turning to them where possible. Our comparison does not look at the UI of the apps, breadth of products offered, speed of service, delivery fees, or driving tipping.

To find out our thoughts on those elements, listen to a recent episode of Geeks Love lIsts (embedded below)

We are strictly interested in knowing the prices of every essential items.

For the comparison we’re seeing how far R500 goes. We are aware that this is more than the current SRD grant offered by government is, but if a South African is using an app to purchase their groceries, they likely are not reliant on the grant.

As for the items we’re picking for the R500 budget, they are low-cost high-yield in nature and would be the types of food you would use to line the pantry cupboard.

The essential food items we have chosen for this comparison are:

• 1 x white loaf of bread
• 1 x brown loaf of bread
• 1 x 18-pack large eggs
• 1 x full cream milk (2 litre)
• 1 x small tub of margarine (500g)
• 1 x medium tub of peanut butter (400g)
• 1 x large box of cereal (corn flakes 1kg)
• 1 x 5-pack of instant noodles
• 4 x cans of baked beans
• 1 x whole uncooked chicken (1kg to 2kg)
• 1 x box of tea bags (Five Roses)
• 1 x small jar of coffee (Ricoffy 250g)

The total for each of the grocery delivery apps, not factoring in delivery fees or tips, are as follows:

As you can see from our table, none of the grocery delivery apps were able to secure all 12 items for R500, with the closest being Spar2U.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Woolworths Dash was the most expensive, eclipsing the other three by some margin. This is rather concerning given most of the items selected in-app were from the retailer’s W List, which is said to be a more affordable range of everyday products.

One thing that is clear from the table below is the price of meat, a whole uncooked chicken in this case, as well as tea and coffee, are quite expensive in South Africa right now. We reported last month on the rise in cost of instant coffee, but even a small jar is tough to stomach in terms of pricing.

It therefore means that most South Africans will need to make hard choices when it comes to the types of products they choose, ultimately making sacrifices on the brand and quality they select based on budget.

With South Africa falling well short of what a living wage should be at the moment, it looks like many cannot afford even the basics. We can only hope that the newly installed GNU is taking a serious look at this, and not simply asking citizens to be more resilient.

[Image – Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash]