The $10,400,000 Bottle of Cooking Oil

Author: Matt Smith

Published:

Imagine you take a bag of flour from a store shelf. In the time it takes you to make your way through the check-out line, the cost of that flour may have increased 15%. This was the situation in Zimbabwe a few years ago, but unfortunately things have only gotten worse.

Zimbabwe’s official inflation reached an astronomical 231 million percent last July. Current estimates of the inflation figure produce numbers you probably have never heard of. But what exactly do these numbers mean to the people of Zimbabwe?

This short video from PBS dives into the frontline of the country’s food shortage, and exposes the illegal entrepreneurs who are addressing this shortage through the black market.