Indexes

ISET’s Khachapuri Index kept declining in April, very much in line with the multi-year seasonal trend (see chart). The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian Khachapuri currently stands at 2.96 GEL, which is 3.2% lower month-on-month (m/m, that is compared to March 2015), and 11.4% lower year-on-year (y/y, that is compared to April 2014).

The average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian Khachapuri in March 2014 was 3.06 GEL, which is 7% lower month-on-month (m/m, that is compared to the previous month), and 3.1 year-on-year (y/y, that is compared to the same month of last year). For foreign currency earners, Khachapuri became even cheaper due to the depreciation of Georgian currency against USD and Euro.

If we take a more detailed look at the prices of Kh-Index ingredients (see graph), the main contributors to y/y Khachapuri index deflation in March were cheese (-12%) and eggs (-1%). All other ingredients increased in price: flour (11%), yeast (21%), butter (6%), and milk (12%). As can be easily seen, prices fell y/y for locally-produced goods (eggs and cheese, made of fresh milk); prices went up y/y for goods that are imported (yeast and butter) or use imported intermediate inputs in their production (flour and milk).

As often discussed on this page, the seasonal dynamics of the Khachapuri Index are mainly driven by extremely sharp fluctuations in the supply of fresh milk, which directly affects the prices of traditional dairy products such as Imeretian cheese. However, these seasonal fluctuations in the price of cheese are consistently sharper in Kutaisi than anywhere else in Georgia.

Khachapuri index kept declining in March with the average cost of cooking one standard Imeretian Khachapuri reaching 3.15 GEL. This is 7% lower month-on-month (compared to February 2015), and 3.1% lower year-on-year (compared to March 2014).