EconomyPrices
How much of India's inflation is food, and which foods?
Food and drink are 37% of the new CPI basket but swing far more than the rest. In August 2026 food prices rose 5.7% over the year and added 2.1 percentage points of the 4.8% headline, about 43%. Onion added the most of any single food.
Written for anyone who wants to know why inflation jumps when vegetable prices do, and what is behind the latest food print. CPI to August 2026.
Which foods?
Within food, fruits and nuts added the most in August 2026, 0.39 points, followed by meat and fish (0.38 points). The single biggest food item was onion, up 48% over the year and adding 0.23 points on its own.
The foods adding most and least to inflation, Aug 2026
Percentage points of headline inflation over the year: the ten food items adding most and the five adding least.
How to read it. An item adds through its weight in the basket and the speed of its price rise. Staples like rice and milk add through weight; vegetables through speed.
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Food's contribution by kind, new basket
Percentage points of headline inflation, from January 2026. In the new basket vegetables and pulses share a class; other food and drink includes sugar and beverages.
How to read it. Each colour is a kind of food. The stack adds up to food's whole contribution.
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Food's contribution by kind, old basket, 2016 to 2025
Percentage points of headline inflation. Old basket groups; other food and drink includes spices, sugar, beverages and prepared meals.
How to read it. Vegetables and pulses drive most of food's swings. Cereals and milk add steadily.
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Tomato, onion and potato
Three vegetables are 2.0% of the basket but cause much of its volatility. Onion prices in August 2026 were 48% higher than a year earlier, having been at their lowest of the new series in April 2026. Tomato prices were 31% lower, potato 13% lower.
Tomato, onion and potato prices
MoSPI item indices on the new basket, all-India, monthly from January 2025. 100 is the 2024 average price.
How to read it. These prices can double or halve within a year with the harvest, which is why core inflation leaves food out.
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Food's momentum
After allowing for the usual seasonal pattern (vegetables cheapen in winter and dearen in summer), food prices rose 1.4% in August 2026 alone.
Food inflation over three and twelve months
Three-month rate seasonally adjusted with our own factors and annualised.
How to read it. The three-month line turns first. When it is far above the twelve-month line, food inflation is still building.
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Villages and towns
Food is a larger part of what rural households buy, so food prices move rural inflation more. In August 2026 food inflation was 5.9% in villages and 5.3% in towns.
Food inflation, rural and urban
Change over twelve months in each sector's food and drink index, monthly from 2012.
How to read it. The two lines move together; the gap shows where food prices are rising faster.
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What the numbers can't tell you
- Two baskets, two food groupings
- The old basket counted prepared meals and snacks as food; the new one puts them under restaurants, and it groups vegetables with pulses. Food's share before and after January 2026 is measured on different definitions.
- Contributions use weights a year back
- A food's contribution is its weight times its price rise, scaled to the basket's cost a year earlier. The parts add up to the headline within a tenth of a point.
- Prices, not supply
- CPI says what households paid. Why prices moved, such as rain, stocks, export bans or fuel costs, needs other data, which this page does not yet carry.
The workings
The question
Data
Every chart has a table view, a CSV download and a link to its published JSON. Bundles are listed in data status.