Price determination is of vital concern for producers and distributors, and is an important element for the buying public. The effective functioning of the SouthAfrican carbohydrate marketing system is analysed by means of price leadership, a useful tool for reviewing price control issues. Price leadership depends on removing the deterministic nature of time-series, filtering and causality determination. The national carbohydrate market shows strong mutual dependence, with white bread the price leader. The high mutual dependence and cross-price effects show that price intervention reduce market performance.