Having spent the weekend with around 50 kids with an average age of 11, all clutching bags of chocolates, gummies and other sweets that would rival any American child's annual Hallowe'en haul and must have cost their parents a week's worth of groceries, I took a trip down memory lane to the price of things 'now and then'... Remember when you could buy your weight's worth of Chappies for R2, Wicks sticks for under 50c and Eskimo Pies for less than a buck? (In fact, some of you may even recall purchasing all of the above for around half a cent...) I think back to a time when my mom was looking grim-faced at a 10kg bag of dog food that was nearing the R20 mark; a time when a hotdog or hamburger cost R1 at the school tuckshop, and (some 10 years later) a pie was still R3... Remember when you could buy a 2-litre Coke for under R5 - and it wasn't on special...? Remember when a 2l milk was under R8? Oh wait, that was only about two years ago... Can you recall when a month's worth of groceries came to R100...? Now you'll spend that on a litre of petrol, a couple litres of juice, a loaf of bread and a can of decaf coffee. So I can't help but think of these children having this same conversation in 10 or 20 years time, saying things like: "Remember when a chocolate bar was under R5, milk cost R15, an ice-cream was only R10; you could get dog food for about R75 and tea bags for under R40..." So now, as we stare at our grocery bills that are sucking down half a month's salary, give a thought to future generations... and perhaps stop at your nearest bank to convert your child's trust fund into a future grocery policy.

Shan Radcliffe, Retail editor retailnews@bizcommunity.com Responses to this column welcomed in our new online editor's column archive.