The falling price of pap — a beloved South African cornmeal dish that forms part of a township shisanyama barbecue — is good news for the central bank as it weighs interest rate cuts.

Sticky food inflation has been one of the reasons the South African Reserve Bank has been hesitant to ease policy, though two of its six policymakers wanted a cut last month, signalling a reduction could be part of the debate when they meet in September.

Cooling food prices may help make that case. Bloomberg’s Shisa Nyama Index, an early guide on which way food inflation may be headed, showed the average cost of a backyard barbecue fell 0.4% in July from a year earlier.

The main drivers of the decline were a drop in the prices of onions, cooking oil and corn meal.

The central bank has held rates at a 15-year high of 8.25% since mid-2023 and vowed not to adjust policy until price pressures were heading sustainably to the midpoint of its 3% to 6% target range.

South Africa’s official headline consumer prices rose an annual 5.1% in June, with food and non-alcoholic beverages advancing 4.6%. July inflation data will be released on August 21.

“Slower food inflation in South Africa has played a role in the overall deceleration of headline CPI, giving the SARB comfort that the midpoint of 4.5% will be met.” said Razia Khan, chief economist for Africa and the Middle East at Standard Chartered Bank.

Crunching data from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group, Bloomberg’s index tracks the prices of key ingredients in a shisanyama — corn meal, onions, carrots, tomatoes, curry powder, salt, frozen chicken portions, beef and wors — a type of sausage.

To compile its survey, the PMBEJD’s data collectors track food prices on the shelves of 47 supermarkets and 32 butcheries that target the low-income market in the greater areas of Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg, Springbok in the far northwest and the far northeastern town of Mtubatuba.