Anyone else noticing a drastic increase in their food shop costs already this year?

[user11290]

Hi,

Has anyone else noticed a drastic difference in the cost of their food shop already this year?

I certainly have noticed a difference.

We really like Yeo Valley butter - which I realise is a luxury choice; but some of the cheaper own-brands are nasty.

It used to be £2.75 for a 500g tub not all that long ago. It went up to £3, then £3.60. Last week, I actually audibly gasped to see it on the shelf in Asda for £4.75. Oh, and it went down to 400g a few months ago, with (unsurprisingly) not a word said.

Chocolate oranges are always a wild card, though. They frequently go up to a ridiculous £3.59, but are then down to £1.50 (occasionally £1) in the run-up to Christmas. I always assumed they were deliberately inflated to a ludicrous price throughout the year to make the Christmas 'offer' price look like an amazing bargain. Do many people even think to buy chocolate oranges other than at Christmas? Schloer is similar.

No, if anything my bills have gone down slightly. Prices rose most sharply early last year and have stayed level or even fallen slightly since then.

My cat's food - Felix pouches have suddenly reduced from 100gm to 85, which I was shocked about. The cats have been having them for over 10 years! I ordered 2 boxes yesterday x 100gms and saw it had been 'substituted' overnight for exact same product but now 85 gms. Yes everything is suddenly so expensive.

Yes. I have noticed it. My mum has noticed it and she just had to cater for her and her partner. My single sibling has noticed it and she only has to buy for herself. My friends have noticed it and they range from being single, cohabiting or married and a handful have kids.

Im saying this to say that it doesn’t seem to matter what your family structure is, food prices seem to be ridiculous and we are all being forced to reevaluate the price of our food shopping and how we choose to eat.

Yes, we have Aldi. Lidls are not in my part of the country yet. (Florida). I’ve always bought Aldi everyday napkins and the last package feels like Kleenex! But, if not for Aldi, I don’t know how people could feed their children. There are only two of us now, both adults, and everything is through the roof. We don’t waste a scrap. Things are frozen or vacuum packed. Something has to give.

My favourite yogurts were always £1.90 at Tesco, for a 4 pack.
The same yogurts have just gone up to £2.50!
I mean, a 10 or 20p rise, you could turn a blind eye to. But 60p is ridiculous!

I've noticed that when they discount short-date stuff, it isn't that much of a discount anymore.
But they still throw it away when it doesn't sell.
And it is millions of pounds a year...

Crazy, isn't it? I work near a Tesco and often pop in after work for something for dinner. The reduced section is a joke, as there's barely anything off the price at all.

Yeah, but it doesn’t taste as good as olive oil.

It’s the same here in Oz. I used to get bags of ‘imperfect’ avocados for around $7, in the last week they’ve gone up to $10.50! Like pp’s I add things to my online trolley then go back through it again and take out anything I don’t really need. It’s depressing! Since when is orange juice a luxury? I have two allergic dogs who need special food, it’s extortionate but they can’t have anything else and it keeps going up. We now spend more on the dogs monthly than we do on ourselves 🤦‍♀️

Prices have gone up but shop aldi and/ or budget / savers...quality is fine.

Yogurts in Sainsbury go up and down. Premium brands like Yeo valley and Bonnie Mamman are often below £2 . I get whichever is cheapest.

And as for olive oil there are environmental issues with supply,a litre lasts me forever and I use it most days so don’t notice the cost increase.

With Brexit and environmental struggles costs are only going to go up. We eat far less meat and expensive packaged products. We eat well and manage to keep our costs down.

i know pay day cant come soon enough

I normally do reorder on my Asda app and obviously add bits and remove bits. You can see the price I paid previously and then the current price. Nearly everything has gone up astronomically

Yep. My sister is not scanning her meats at the self checkout and I don't blame her.

Govt are increasing employers wage bills so that will affect everyone in the supply chain, from manufacturing/logistics/retail. It takes a lot of people to get the goods to the store!
Gvt are ignorant of all this of course as none of them have ever run a business.

I agree with this poster.

Those measure haven’t come into fruition yet and everybody needs a decent living wage and services so it’s something we’ll have to suck up. Nobody needs meat and expensive packaged crap every day .

And maybe we should think of a way of reversing the huge increase to costs caused by Brexit which the previous government were either ludicrously oblivious to or didn’t care about .

I have taken to shopping only twice monthly, and batch cooking for the freezer. Also stopped using olive oil except for dressings, using vegetable or peanut oil instead for sautéing onions/celery/carrots as a base for most dishes. Also, as it’s winter, a good hearty home-made soup (costing around £1 per person) with bake-at-home rolls has proved to be an acceptable full meal for my previously “meat + 2 veg” family now the DC are older. Easy “cook from scratch” meals are E.g. stir-fry chicken with onions, add a little pot of Thai green or red curry paste, or a tablespoon of peanut butter and 1/4 teaspoon of hot chilli powder, then a tin of coconut milk and frozen green vegetables like green beans, endamame beans and leeks, or frozen peppers for the red curry, served with noodles - only takes 20 minutes

How do we know that the NI and NMW rises aren't still going to add a lot more to the costs, though?

For all we know, the manufacturers could be increasing the prices in preparation but doing it in two or three stages beforehand to 'soften' the blow and make it look less stark.

Like Lurpak, it almost doubled in price then got left on the shelves. It's come down again now but I won't buy it on principle. I appreciate that companies have massive overheads but one can't help thinking that there is an element of greed also.

Inflation is an ongoing story, in my experience food inflation hasn't slowed much- it certainly hasn't stopped.

Yes! Makes me angry considering the profit super markets make on food! Disgusting 😡

This is definitely where I am seeing the increase - most of the toothpaste options on the shelf except for the very basic Colgate / aqua fresh options all £5+ etc.