In the last few months, the price of food in Thailand is increasing more and more. Basic food stuffs like sugar and eggs, used in most Thai dishes, have risen more than 15-20% and even bread, vegetables and milk are up by around 3-5%. In the last week alone, the half a loaf of brown bread I normally buy every few days has gone up from 20 baht (62 cents) to 24 baht (75 cents). Not a huge deal to a westerner, but to a working-class Thai that 17% price increase is catastrophic.
The worst food increases for me have been vegetables. I have two rabbits and they eat a lot, so I’m at the supermarket or one of my local markets every other day buying fresh veggies. Kale is their favorite food, and that’s up 10%, carrots are up about 3% and pea pods around 5%. Just with buying vegetables for the rabbits and fruit for myself, my weekly food costs are higher by 10% of what they were a couple of months ago.
Watch the video from Aljazeera for more information on why, as well as some awesome video footage of markets around Bangkok.
