Why is food so expensive?

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Joanne Kwan is looking for a bargain at her local night market. She's finding that since the pandemic, the cost of food has been increasingly taking up more of her budget.

And in the English town of Halifax in Yorkshire, a community supermarket is seeing rising numbers of people queueing up to access cut-price groceries as the cost of living bites.

All of us are feeling the impact of rising food prices. So what's going on and why are we paying so much for what should be nutritious staples?

Rumella Dasgupta investigates, with a focus on fruit and vegetables, what is driving up the cost of the healthy basics we're all supposed to be eating more of. Ghana based economist John Asafu Adjaye from the African Centre for Economic Transformation explains the big issues pushing up grocery bills in Africa and beyond, and it turns out everyone around the world is facing similar issues. Rumella also talks to Stefanie Katzman, boss of the New York based fruit and veg distributer Katzman about the extra costs popping up in her supply chain. UK-based carrot farmer Roger Hobson takes Rumella on a tour of his farm and explains how recurrent heatwaves have been damaging his crop. And in Thailand, fruit exporter Christine Pecharalum talks about her fears for next year's crop of durians.

If you would like to get in touch with the show to tell us how the price of food is affecting you, please email: [email protected]

Producer Lexy O'Connor

Sound engineer: Fiona Fairmaner.

Image Description: A tower of vegetables, a potato, and aubergine, a courgette, a red chilli and an onion float on a green background. Credit: Getty.