At the time,breakfast cereal prices had soared by 15.3 per cent over the previous 12 months,poultry had jumped by 11.6 per cent,milk by 17.9 per cent and the likes of sunflower and olive oils by 20.8 per cent.

Since that peak,inflation has dropped. Lamb prices have fallen almost 11 per cent since June last year and are now lower than before the pandemic.

Breakfast cereal inflation has fallen to 4.1 per cent,or lower than its pre-COVID-19 level;cheese inflation is at 2.8 per cent compared to 16.8 per cent in 2022;and tea and coffee inflation has tumbled from 11.9 per cent to 1.1 per cent.

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said the fall in food inflation was important because,along with petrol prices,the weekly grocery shop was a constant reminder to consumers of price pressures.

Oliver believes the Reserve Bank will start cutting rates by early next year. As inflation in food prices eased,he said,the RBA’s fears that consumers would come to expect ever-increasing prices would subside.

“People tend to focus on petrol and food prices because they constantly see them and feel them. A slowdown in prices at the supermarket would help deal with inflation expectations,” he said.

Nomura economists Andrew Ticehurst and David Seif said unemployment was probably still above the level at which inflation would start to ease,while there were broad price pressures nationally.

“We think[the RBA] will judge it too soon to announce the ‘all-clear’,and too soon to seriously consider the case for a lower cash rate,” they said.

Inflation for oils and fats – heavily affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and more recently poor growing conditions across the world – is still at 11.5 per cent over the past year.

Ukraine accounted for almost 50 per cent of the world’s sunflower oil exports before 2022. Sunflower oil soared from $US640 a tonne in 2020 to $US2350 a tonne a month after the invasion.

Prices have eased but are still about $US905 a tonne. The shortage of sunflower oil pushed up the prices of other oils such as palm oil.

Over the past year,olive oil producers in the southern Mediterranean and in Australia have been hit by poor weather conditions,reducing global and domestic supplies. It has left the prices for oils and fats almost 55 per cent higher than before the pandemic.

The Australian Council of Social Service believes the Reserve Bank should use the meeting to cut official interest rates,arguing the economy and jobs market are much weaker than the bank believes. It said entry-level vacancies had fallen by a third since June 2022,with an additional 100,000 people unemployed and an extra 99,000 people under-employed.

Jobs growth had been driven by a 316,000 increase in publicly funded jobs,such as in health and education jobs. Private sector jobs had barely grown.

“Official interest rates went too far last year,shifting the balance of risks from an upsurge in inflation to an upsurge in unemployment and a recession,” ACOSS said.

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