Home-cooked veg thali’s cost continues to rise as non-veg thali gets cheaper

New Delhi, July 5: The cost of the home-cooked vegetarian thali has been on the rise since November 2023 and in June, the cost of a home-cooked veg thali rose 10 per cent (year-on-year) while the cost of the non-veg thali declined 4 per cent, a report showed on Friday.

The cost of the veg thali increased due to a surge of 30 per cent, 46 per cent and 59 per cent in prices of tomato, onion and potato, respectively, largely due to the low base of last fiscal.

“Tomatoes, onions and potatoes have been the key contributors to this rise as adverse weather conditions have impacted their supply,” said Pushan Sharma, Director-Research, CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics.

Going forward, thali prices are expected to be lower on-year due to the high base of last fiscal, when tomato prices had surged.

“Sequentially, though, tomato prices will rise before correcting at the end of August as fresh supplies arrive from southern and western states,” said Sharma.

According to the CRISIL report, the prices surged because of lower onion arrivals due to significant drop in rabi acreage, decline in yield for potato crop due to unseasonal rainfall in March, and virus infestation in tomato summer crop due to high temperatures in key growing regions of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh that tamped tomato arrivals down 35 per cent on-year.

For non-veg thali, the decrease in cost was due to an estimated decline of 14 per cent on-year in broiler prices on a high base of last fiscal, coupled with an oversupply situation and lower feed cost on-year. However, the cost of both veg and non-veg thalis increased month-on-month, by 6 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively, said the report.