Weather, demand keep fruit inflation at five-year high

Fruits continue to fire up household grocery bills, as weather vagaries and increased demand drive up prices even as other food items such as pulses and vegetables offered relief during the first nine months of 2025.

Fruit inflation averaged 13.2% during January-September 2025, the highest in five years, according to an ET analysis. It was 5.9% in 2024 and 3.9% in 2023.

Meanwhile, vegetable prices fell 10.9% on average during the first nine months of this year compared with a 24.9% increase during the same period last year. Overall, retail inflation eased to 2.7% in this period, down from 4.7% a year earlier.

“Unlike vegetables and other food items, fruits are more susceptible to regional supply shocks, limited warehousing, and cold chain constraints,” said Paras Jasrai, associate director, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra).

“Imports cannot easily offset these disruptions, leading to persistent inflation in popular fruits despite overall food price moderation,” he added. Fruits accounted for 3.85% of monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) in rural areas in 2023-24 and 3.87% in urban areas. Common fruits such as bananas and apples recorded higher inflation than the rest.

Banana prices averaged 8.1% in 2025 during January-September compared with 6.1% in 2024.

Bananas are grown throughout the country, but recent flooding and heavy rains in key banana-growing regions of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra have impacted supply, explained Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda.”This year’s excessive rains have damaged the crop heavily,” said BV Patil, president of the Banana Grower’s Association of India, adding that while the inflation in this fruit category may be high for consumers, farmers have hardly got any return on their produce as rains have damaged the quality.Farmers in Bihar, a major banana producing state, shifted to maize as it earned them higher prices on account of being a raw material for ethanol. Apple inflation averaged 12.2% in the first nine months of 2025, up from 10% over the same period last year.

“The supply side bottlenecks this year caused by unprecedented floods in key producing states such as Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh have led to a rise in fruit inflation,” said Jasrai.

Other fresh fruits, including litchi, pears, singara and berries recorded an average inflation of 13.9% during January-September 2025, up from 6.5% last year.