Food prices skyrocketing again!

[cookingthebooks]

DH disagrees, says it’s all stabilised out now and slowed down but he’s not actually done the shop in forever.

This month I’ve just been walking around the supermarket aghast. The price hikes that are going on, my favourite bar of ‘cheap’ dark chocolate has gone from 65p pre Christmas to £1.10!!! Fishcakes from £1.80 to £1.95 and the kids mini pizzas from 45p to 65p all pretty much overnight. There’s lots more and fruit/fresh food have all risen too. I’m really struggling to do the full week shop for our family of four for less than £150 a week now (everything included, pull ups, all work/school lunches, cleaning and toiletries)
Some weeks it’s closer to £170 and I’m very frugal I hate it!

tell me this isn’t just me?

That oil is £12 in Sainsbury's!

I work in food. We are increasing costs to the supermarkets by 4% to absorb the impacts of the budget. Supermarkets will pass that 4% on, then have their own increased costs to pass on.

I am very pro labour but I do think the budget has been devastating to the economy.

Nonsense.

Tescos profits for 2024 were £2.8Billion. Up from £1.8 Billion the year before. Up from £0.88 billion in 2022z

They could have easily absorbed the few extra million the increase of NI has cost them and still posted record profits.

This is all pure corporate greed. No one can claim otherwise.

I’d love that job!!

This is nonsense. Yes, Portuguese minimum wage went up on 1st January from €822 to €870 a month (albeit 13 times a year) so anyone earning that is poorly paid by Northern European standards.

But no way do Portuguese groceries cost double or more what they do in the UK. Some actual examples: 500g of dried beans or chickpeas are €1.10 in Pingo Doce or Intermarché in PT, they are £2 (equivalent to €2.39) in Tesco. Monkfish is €9.50 per kilo in Portugal, £33 for 360 grams from the Fish Society here - that's £91.67 or €109 per kilo, for something from UK waters that may well have been caught in the North Sea or the Channel by the same trawler.

Portugal has also gone in for supermarket loyalty schemes in a big way, so in reality if you understand the system it is quite easy to knock 10-15% off a big shop or take advantage of various promotions which often knock 25% off by crediting it back to your loyalty card.

Butter, eggs, ham, chocolate, frozen veg have all gone up by 20p here since Christmas, so a 10-15% increase, across Aldi, Co-op and Asda. At Aldi a few things I buy regularly haven't been available for a few weeks. Co-op and Asda are cutting down their member offers.

Tesco's current guidance for 24/25 is £2.9bn operating profit, with the hit from higher NI alone at £250m each year.

Would you put up with having your pay reduced by nearly 9 per cent? I am a Tesco shareholder, and would move my money elsewhere before I accepted that kind of hit.

I expect food prices to rise again for a number of reasons:

• NMW increase
• employer NI increases
• wage increases
• increased transport costs
• increased seed, fertiliser and feed costs
• not producing enough food in the UK
• farmers, labourers etc. in other countries being paid a fairer wage increasing the costs.
• artificially low prices
• Climate change! This is altering what grows well when. You only have to watch Clarkson’s Farm to see the impact of the weather.

Remember everyone in the food chain needs to recoup salary costs and make a profit. The knock on effect is that food costs more.

Why is it more profitable for British farmers to ‘plant’ solar panels than grow wheat or farm livestock?

The reality is food is going to cost more of our incomes. This adversely affects the poorest the most. A poorly fed workforce (nutritionally) is likely to be less productive, not be as robust at fighting disease etc.

A big issue is when you increase wages you increase the cost of food.

My point exactly. Especially when those shares are held in my pension fund

Oddly ours has decreased again, haven't changed shopping habits all that much and have actually added a couple more expensive products but we've gone from spending around £125 a week a few months ago to £100

It's not just you no I ordered my asda shop on 6th January and the mince was £6.80, it's now £7.56. Absolutely disgusting how they can keep doing this

I'm single and £60 used to be a generous, "treat" shop at Sainsburys
£60 is now my every day standard shop at Aldi where I add up as I go round

So the original poster was right. Prices are going up again because of current government policy. They will never come back down. We are in hyper inflation and when that happened in Europe in the 1930s the Nazi party came into power soon afterwards. What could go wrong.

Also hyperinflation in the 1970s brought in Thatcher and crap economic times in the US alongside rocketing crime has brought in Trump. I honestly think we are going to get Reform next and god help us.

We don’t have hyperinflation. It’s about 2.5% currently, which is nowhere near the level for hyperinflation. There are countries at a lot of risk of it (Egypt for example where the rate of inflation is closer to 25% currently).
Yes things are more expensive and it’s hard for people but this is surely just hyperbole.

YANBU. Prices are going up.

I'm too lazy to find it now, but in June in pre-election debates here on MN I shared my view that voting in Labour will lead to Reform win in 2029. I stand by this point

You think since Covid we haven’t been in a period of hyperinflation?

but you're still pro Labour? why? who do you see benefitting from having them apart from public sector employees? but even they will be penalised by high inflation and so not such a massive win?

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast do you even know what hyperinflation is?

Prices rising rapidly day to day. Devaluation of money such that your salary is worthless by the end of the month. Reprinting of money with ever increasing numbers of zeros. Inflation rates in the thousands.

I know prices have increased more than people have been used to in the last few years, but do you actually think we've had hyperinflation in the UK?

Hyperinflation is goods rising over 50% in a set time period. I am literally looking at goods having risen over 50% since Covid.

That 'set time period' being 30 days and the increases being sustained, not once or twice so the price doubles in a few years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45523636

So this level of inflation is acceptable to you?

Yes but many super markets workers only worked a few hours each week and up until April employers didn't have to pay NI on workers who only earned very little in a year but now RR has made it so employers have to pay NI on anyone earning over £5k a year so basically employers are getting rid of a lot of workers or cutting their hours to now keep them under £5k a year whereas in the past they could earn maybe £10k (not exact figure) without paying NI. The more it costs employers to employ staff the more prices will go up so yes thank RR for that.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast That's a completely different question. Whether or not I find price rises acceptable (no-one likes them, but I understand the reasons behind them) it's still not the case that we're suffering hyperinflation in the UK and it's ridiculous to compare here with countries like Venezula and Egypt where you need two great stacks of money to buy a kilo of meat.