Seasons change, and so do Georgian food prices. In the second week of June, Georgia’s major food retail networks (Carrefour, Goodwill, Fresco, and SPAR) lowered their prices by an average of 3.9% y/y and 1.8% m/m. Compared to the end of May, prices moved the most for the following food items: eggplant (-21%), pasta (-10.3%), and coffee (-5.7%); wheat flour (+11%), buckwheat (+10.5%), and garlic (+6.8%).

On June 15-16th, Oxfam organized and hosted the International Conference on Food Security and Nutrition in Tbilisi. ISET President Eric Livny was a panel member for the session on Food Security (FS) monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and discussed the major findings of a research piece entitled “Assessing Food Security Data Relevance and Collection Mechanisms in the South Caucasus” conducted by APRC at the end of 2015.

Georgian retail food prices are up 1.1% y-o-y (May 2016 vs. May 2015) and 1.0% down m-o-m (compared to last month). Compared to mid-May, cheese, apple and carrot experienced the biggest price declines of 8.5%, 8.4 %, and 7.1%, respectively. The prices of cabbage, buckwheat, and peach are up by 8.3%, 8.3%, and 7.1%, respectively.

Driven by fruits and vegetables, Georgian retail food prices are going down. In the first half of May, ISET’s Retail Food Price Index lost 2.9% y/y (compared to May 2015) and 1.8% m/m (compared to April 2016). The leaders in prices declines were cheese, greens, and coffee: down by 10.2%, 5.1%, and 2.7%, respectively.

The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement between Georgia and the EU, brought into effect in 2014, was hailed at the time by many as being of great importance to Georgian manufacturers and food/beverage producers. Yet, skeptics commented that 1) Georgia had already had more than 7000 articles duty-free and quota-free under the pre-existing GSP+ trade terms granted by the EU for many years, and 2) very few exporters had been able to take advantage of these concessions.