Sri Lanka Food Prices This Week: Vegetables, Rice, Coconut, Eggs
Official retail prices for 122 food items, with the weekly and yearly change. Wholesale and retail at Pettah, Dambulla and Narahenpita too.
How it works
This page reproduces published prices. Nothing here is a model, a forecast or an average of shop quotes collected by us, and no tax, levy or margin is applied to any figure. Two government publishers do the measuring, and the page says which one every number came from.
The weekly table is the Department of Census and Statistics Weekly Retail Prices series: 122 products in 23 categories, priced as an average across main markets in the Colombo district (Peliyagoda, Maradana, Dematagoda, Grandpass, Kirulapana, Wellawatta, Nugegoda, Ratmalana) plus the Narahenpita and Ratmalana economic centres. The latest week in this snapshot is W4.Sep.2026, in which 114 of the 122 products carry a figure. A product the publisher left blank means it was not recorded that week. Blank is never read as zero: those 8 items are listed by name with the most recent week in the snapshot that did carry a price.
Four figures are derived from that series, and only these four:
- Week on week.
(latest − previous) ÷ previous × 100, comparing W4.Sep.2026 against W3.Sep.2026. Shown in rupees and percent, with the sign. - Year on year. The same formula against W4.Sep.2025, matching on the same week of the same month a year earlier rather than on a calendar date, so seasonal items are compared like for like.
- Five-year range.
(latest − low) ÷ (high − low) × 100. This is published only for the items whose full series was read and reconciled by hand in this pass, and is left blank everywhere else rather than inferred from the three weeks this snapshot holds. - Basket total. The sum of quantity times unit price at the latest prices, and the same quantities at the year-ago prices. An item with no year-ago figure is dropped from both sides, never from one, so the percentage stays like for like and the dropped names are printed.
The market panel is the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Daily Price Report for 15 October 2026, a one-day snapshot of 38 commodities with separate wholesale and retail quotes by market. The wholesale markets change by section: Pettah and Dambulla for vegetables and fruit, Pettah and Marandagahamula for rice, Peliyagoda and Negombo for fish. The spread is (dearest − cheapest) ÷ cheapest × 100 across the markets that reported that day. A market the publisher marked "n.a." is excluded from the spread rather than counted as zero, which would invent a 100% gap.
The two series are independent measurements of the same thing, so they can be used to check each other. The Checks tab compares the weekly average against the mean of the Central Bank's Pettah and Narahenpita retail quotes, restricted to Colombo-area markets because that is what the weekly series covers, and restricted to staples that store well because three weeks separate the two snapshots. Fresh produce can move 30% in that time, so a gap there would say nothing about either publisher. 10 of the 16 comparable staples agree within 10%, and the ones that do not are named with their figures instead of quietly dropped.
A second route to the same answer runs through a price index with the year-ago week as the base: index = latest ÷ year-ago × 100, change = index − 100. For a white egg the index against W4.Sep.2025 is 112.38, giving +12.38%, which is the figure the table shows. The two methods agree to the decimal, as they must.
Worked examples
Common food prices in Sri Lanka, week W4.Sep.2026
Weekly average retail price across the main Colombo district markets, from the Department of Census and Statistics. Use the tool above for the full 122 items and the per-market figures.
| Item | Unit | Price | vs last week | vs last year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Coconuts | each | Rs 170.44 | −0.27% | −12.83% |
| Egg - White | each | Rs 35.85 | −14.74% | +12.38% |
| Samba Average | per kg | Rs 241.14 | −1.54% | −8.97% |
| Nadu White | per kg | Rs 224.24 | −0.46% | −0.98% |
| Mysore Dhall - Average | per kg | Rs 332.11 | +0.78% | +0.96% |
| Beans Green | per kg | Rs 556.55 | +1.19% | +9.84% |
| Carrot | per kg | Rs 406.90 | −1.56% | +22.07% |
| Tomatoe No1. | per kg | Rs 512.59 | +1.30% | +96.15% |
| B.Onions Imported | per kg | Rs 315.61 | +1.26% | +90.63% |
| Local Potatoes | per kg | Rs 458.75 | +0.51% | +26.50% |
| Sugar | per kg | Rs 251.90 | −0.15% | +6.81% |
| Chicken Fresh | per kg | Rs 1,395.83 | +1.51% | +5.68% |
| Bread | per 450 g | Rs 135.56 | +0.00% | +2.70% |
| Anchor | per 400 g | Rs 1,300.00 | +0.00% | +8.33% |
Source: Department of Census and Statistics, Weekly Retail Prices, week W4.Sep.2026. Green beans wholesale at Pettah on 15 October 2026 was Rs 450.00, against the Rs 556.55 weekly retail average.
Frequently asked questions
Sources & references
- Department of Census and Statistics: Weekly Retail Prices dashboard
- DCS: the weekly price series itself (122 products, weekly from January 2017)
- Central Bank of Sri Lanka: Daily Price Report index
- CBSL: Wholesale and Retail Prices, Selected Food Commodities, 15 October 2026 (PDF)
Both tables were transcribed and cross-checked against the publishers on 2026-10-16. The Department of Census and Statistics publishes one new week every week and the Central Bank one report every working day, so this page is re-read weekly. Producer-side prices are out of scope here: see the paddy and green tea leaf calculators for those.
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