Concerns the Middle East conflict will make rising grocery prices worse.

The Infometrics-Foodstuffs New Zealand Grocery Supplier Cost Index finds suppliers charged 2.3 percent more on average in February, compared to a year earlier.

Annual average produce department costs rose 2.9 percent, the fastest in two years.

Infometrics Principal Economist Brad Olsen told Ryan Bridge this doesn't capture rising fuel prices.

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