According to Statistics New Zealand's latest food price index fruits and vegetables are getting increasingly expensive even though the global recession saw a widespread fall in the prices of the commodities.

For the whole year there was an overall increase of 9.5% in the prices by the end of January 2009 and for the month of January it was a 0.8% increase. In January itself the prices of fruit and vegetables rose by 3.6% with the prices of tomatoes going by almost 50% of its price in December, kiwifruit being 48.2% higher and mandarins higher by
37.3%.