Inflation slows down, closes out March at 0.56% driven up by food
Brazil’s official inflation closed out March at 0.56 percent, pressured mainly by the price of food, which rose the most since December 2024. Still, the price index IPCA, released Friday (Apr. 11) by the statistics bureau IBGE, lost strength compared to February’s 1.31 percent.
As a result of the figure for March, the index reached 5.48 percent over 12 months, thus above the ceiling of the government’s target and the highest since February 2023, when it reached 5.60 percent.
The target set by the National Monetary Council is three percent, with a tolerance of 1.5 percentage points more or less, i.e. 1.5 to 4.5 percent.
March 2025 had the highest result for the month since 2023 (0.71%). In the same month last year, the IPCA stood at 0.16 percent.
All nine groups of products and services surveyed rose in March.
Food and drink – 1.17%
Housing – 0.24%
Household goods – 0.13%
Clothing – 0.59%
Transport – 0.46%
Health and personal care – 0.43%
Personal expenses – 0.70%
Education – 0.10%
Communication – 0.24%
Coffee, eggs, and tomatoes
The data point out that food and drink ed for almost half (45%) of all inflation in March. In February, food inflation had been 0.70 percent.
The March result for food is the highest since December, when it rose by 1.18 percent. The number also marks a turning point after a three-month streak of food inflation losing momentum. In 12 months, food prices are 7.68 percent higher.
Food inflation is one of the main current concerns of the government, which hopes the current harvest will help bring prices down.
The biggest food villains in the pocket of Brazilians were tomatoes, which soared 22.55 percent, an impact of 0.05 percentage points; ground coffee (8.14%, 0.05 p.p.), and chicken eggs (13.13%, 0.04 p.p.). Together, these ed for a quarter of the month’s inflation.
Survey Manager Fernando Gonçalves noted that the rise in tomatoes can be explained by the heat in the summer months.
“There was an acceleration in ripening, leading to an earlier harvest in some areas. Without these harvest areas in March, there was a reduction in supply, putting upward pressure on prices,” he stated.
For eggs, he named two reasons: an increase in the cost of corn—the basis of poultry feed—and the Lent season, when the demand for eggs is higher.
Ground coffee surged 77.78 percent in the last 12 months. Gonçalves mentioned internal and external factors—higher prices on the international market due to a lower supply of beans on a global scale, plus a crop failure in Vietnam due to adverse weather conditions, which also affected domestic production.
The index
The IPCA gauges the cost of living for families with incomes between one and 40 minimum wages. Prices are collected in ten metropolitan regions and six state capitals.
