Food price inflation peaked at 19.2pc in March, a 45-year high, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It has eased sharply in recent months, but remained stubbornly high at 17.3pc in June.
Retailers told the Bank that food prices were still expected to rise at an annual pace of “around 10pc or slightly lower” by the end of 2023.
Barret Kupelian, a senior economist at PwC, said: “The bad news is that even though food inflation is expected to moderate, food prices will remain high and not decrease. This means that the era of cheap food has probably come to an end in the UK.”
Food bills are still 10 to 12% of household income. As opposed to the much higher levels of only a few decades back.
This just isn’t the end of cheap food at all.
Predictive programming, like with Teevee and the supermarkets trying to convince you we live in an Afro-Asian country that’s strangely cool with sexual perversions.
I assume they’re not extirpating the British and European agricultural industries because they mean us well.
Quick shufty at my spreadsheet. Food = 8.8% of spending.
It’s so much better to have Bank of England commentaries on the impact of inflation than admitting that they’ve made a complete orchid-up and that their fat heads should role.
People wishing to lower the percentage they spend on food should just buy a new Mercedes every month.
The price of wheat is £200/tonne, same as it was (briefly) in 2008. Milk is back to where it was at the beginning of 2022, and falling fast. Lamb is cheaper than last year. Only beef and pork are up on last year. So what food price inflation? The consumer is being right royally ripped off by the oligopolies that are the food processing and retailing industries.
I assume they intend to bring in the righteous policies adopted by the Dutch and Sri Lankans.
After all, they’ve got to fix that global boiling, haven’t they?
500g ALDI pasta ranged from 19p (spaghetti) to 75p in 2019.
The range is now 29p to £1.19.
So it depends.
If the weightings are done correctly (yeah, right), it’s perfectly possible that people could switch from the high end to low end, and spend more on liquor or repaying the mortgage.
And food inflation would have to show a drop if measured right.
Same with oils, toilet tissues, tomatoes – the best ones are 4* the price of the cheapest.
High food inflation could mean switching to higher quality, rather than an excess of money.
Interesting to see cooking apples removed from the basket this year. Hardly anyone buys them it seems. I blame the planners for making us live in hutches with small kitchens where there’s no space to knock out a few pies. Or to house grandma.
You can’t make make Apple and Damson jelly without the apple.
(Old American folk saying.)