Argentina Food Prices Outpace Overall Inflation

Argentina’s food prices rose 0.59% in the third week of October, while the overall price level climbed 0.12%, according to consultancy Eco Go. Food added 0.16 percentage points to the index—more than the total increase—reflecting its weight in the weekly results. The survey, dated 19 October, tracked the basic food basket alongside other goods and services.

Food Costs and the Weekly Index

Clothing and footwear prices fell 1.75%, offsetting some of the rise in food and other categories. Eco Go said the general weekly increase would have been about 0.29% without that drop. Food’s 0.59% rise came in below the 1.05% increase reported for the previous week. Prices fell 0.05% in the first week of October, rose 1.05% in the second and climbed 0.59% in the third, bringing the month-to-date increase to about 1.6%.

Seven of the 10 food groups recorded gains, and five rose faster than the food average. Bread and cereals climbed 2.14%. Dairy and eggs had the largest decline. Meat, the heaviest group in the food basket, rose 0.1% on retail shelves after a 1.3% increase the week before. Poultry prices advanced 1.0%, while beef fell 0.2%.

Fruit prices on shelves rose 1.7%, following two weeks of declines. Vegetables gained 0.8% for a second week in a row, putting their increase over those two weeks at 2.7%. Wholesale fruit prices rose 1.3% and gained 10.2% over three weeks. Eco Go said that wholesale increase was beginning to pass through to retail prices. Wholesale vegetable prices rose 0.5% after falling for two weeks.

Meat and Other Prices

Wholesale meat prices climbed 0.9% during the week, marking a third straight increase and bringing the rise over that period to 3.6%. Since October 2025, meat prices have increased 55.6% at wholesale and 45.4% on retail shelves, according to the report.

Airfares rose 6.4% outside food, while lodging increased 5.3%. Tolls also rose. Trousers fell 7.1%, and footwear prices declined 4.2%.

Eco Go projects a 2.4% rise in food prices in October, compared with 1.8% for all prices. Its projection assumes weekly increases of 0.5% in the remaining weeks. That estimate for the overall monthly increase would put annual inflation near 32.4%. Eco Go’s figures are private estimates, though, and may differ from the official measurement by Argentina’s statistics office, INDEC.

Official Figures and Survey Differences

INDEC reported September inflation of 1.9%, inflation of 23.6% in the first nine months of 2026 and a 12-month rate of 33.4%. Eco Go estimated food and beverages had risen 26.9% in the year to date and 34.0% over 12 months. Those food figures are Eco Go estimates, not INDEC data. The official INDEC September table couldn’t be read directly; La Capital, Canal 26 and Perfil reported its figures. INDEC’s October release date hadn’t been confirmed.

Private weekly surveys also differ. LCG, which scrapes 8,000 prices at five supermarkets, measured a 0.4% increase in food and beverages in the second week of October. Eco Go measured about 1% for food that week. Its third-week account puts the second-week increase at 1.05%, while Perfil reported 1.03% on 16 October.

Polymarket’s Argentina October inflation market assigned a 45% probability to an outcome between 1.6% and 1.8%, and a 36% probability to a result between 1.9% and 2.1%. The figures used bid-and-ask midpoints at 2:44 a.m. ET on 22 October. About US$15,700 had traded, and the market was scheduled to close on 12 November.