To think prices are still going up almost weekly?

[MissMarplesCat]

Ocado being the worst to my knowledge.

I had a tray of organic chicken in my basket this morning at £8.80.
Loaded it up an another browser a few hours later (to rethink my list) and noticed that now it is showing as £9.28.

My last order of chicken went up by a whopping £2 last week. I am seeing this across the board, in other supermarkets, and also noticed that with Ocado at least, a good deal of it occurred after the new website reboot.

Has anyone else noticed this? The hikes I've seen at Tesco recently are often hidden temporarily by clubcard deals.

Global instability hitting production & supply chains (i.e. Ukraine)

Poor harvests due to adverse weather - several instances

Increased population causing higher demand

Increased energy costs (imported!) hitting every step of the supply chain (factories, warehouses, shops)

Increases in minimum wage hitting every step of the supply chain (transport to factories, transport, warehouse, transport, shops), same with the stupid damaging increase in NIC!

Losses due to shoplifting that have to be paid for by all other customers

Shop loyalty/discount cards (blue light cards etc) that have to be paid for, costs spread over all shoppers.

The thing is that food prices (and others) will never come down so we need to get used to higher prices

On the back of this thread, I just compared my lidl receipt from last weekend to one from Feb 2024.
There were only a few items that I bought which were the same (tined tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bananas, tinned soup, baked beans and cheese)

I didnt include frsh veg as the weights are not shown so can't compare like for like.

They were all exactly the same price, except the cheese.
This was twice the price, but I may have got a larger packet, the receipt doesn't show the size.

So it doesn't feel more expensive to me.

Agreed OP.

I’d be interested to understand the thinking at the more ‘premium’ supermarkets (Ocado, Waitrose) - as there’s got to be a tipping point for them at which people go elsewhere.

There's always an excuse for inflation, i think a lot of it is rigged. House prices for example.

Some of the price hikes I am seeing are over £2. They went up in 2023, then again, and now it is still creeping up. Some of it doesn't seem to be a result of the manufacturer's costs going up. Olive oil? Understandable, it can be traced to an issue, but most fripperies in the supermarket are not suddenly paying a fuck ton more for a pile of stabilisers and emulsifiers - I'd say they are making more profit and giving us less.

Another example - a small thin crust pizza from M&S. Was previously around £3.50.
They took it off the market temporarily last year for a while and when it returned they reduced the protein content and upped the carb, shrunk the weight and put it on the market for £4.

They also reduced the weight of their sliced roast turkey and ADDED a stabiliser, and put the price up.

That's cunning, not costs.

It's not just raw foodstuffs. Power and wages are increasing throughout the supply chain, factories, warehouses, distribution centres, shops, and goods need to be transported between those places (wages and carriage costs have risen). The actual cost of the raw food at the farm is usually a tiny proportion of the selling price - it's all the other costs along the way that have a "multiplier" effect.

There are two types of inflation.

Supply push is where the costs to make, move and sell the goods increases and the retail price has to increase to cover all those increases.

Demand pull inflation is where there's a lot of demand but limited supply, i.e. the housing market, so "buyers" are competing against each other to buy/rent a scarce commodity (a house) so the prices increase.

Interesting that you classify Ocado as 'Premium' as whilst it does stock premium goods, Ocado can be much cheaper than Tesco.
I have just compared identical items (same item, same brand, same size, same weight) from my Ocado shop with the items on Tesco online. All of the items were things I buy on a weekly/monthly basis.

Ocado £46.44

Tesco £54,95

That is a huge difference,

I also think cookies are gaming prices. I've noticed the same within a couple of hours and if I look on an incognito browser the lower prices show again. It's been like that for just over a week for me at least. I did wonder ifnit was to do with the tracking cookies on here at first but I don't think they start until the end of the month

Yes, whenever I mention the word Ocado to people there's often a sarcastic response, similarly to the one at the top of this thread.
No idea why. I use them because they have good sell by dates on meat, and because they don't extract payment until I accept the order at my door. I like that.

I find the Ocado range competitively priced with Tesco. But I have known Tesco faithful's scoff that Ocado is only for the posh. Just because there might be some very smelly cheese on there for over £60, it doesn't mean Ocado is premium, but I do like that we have that choice.

Personally I prefer Sainsbury's but not their delivery service. Most sell by dates were lousy in comparison to Ocado.

I was using Ocado but my trial delivery pass ran out and I have recently had a couple of 50p deliveries and a free one from Sainsbury's but the dates on chilled food, fruit and veg are not so good, like they had just picked the nearest one to the front. I didn't find Ocado particularly expensive unless buying some of the M&S food which never seemed to be on offer and more expensive than in M&S. I will probably go back to Ocado soon.

My favourite Oatibix went up to about £4 which is daylight robbery but I did spot it in Asda for £2.98 so sent DH down for 6 boxes😳. I don't generally like Asda but it is down the road so handy if we run out of milk

Prices are rising but wages are too. Ive hired four people in the last few months and we are having to pay a lot. Supermarkets are paying their staff more. Their profit margins are wafer thin so they have to recover the costs by charging more for food.

Id love to see a ratio of something really simple like the cost of a loaf of ordinary bread (not posh artisan loaves) vs median hourly wages over time.

I use sainsburys. I haven't had any major issues with sell by dates or quality and found ocado and waitrose much more expensive.

Hard to find data on historic bread prices but UK spending on food as a percentage of household income has fallen over the past 60 years - ONS quotes a fall from 33% in 1957 to 16% in 2017:

https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2018/01/18/celebrating-60-years-of-family-spending/

Spending in recent years has fluctuated a little but not by much:

https://www.gov.uk/government/stati

Ukraine usually produces a huge amount of food including oils. The war has impacted on food production as well as energy prices (which will themselves have an effect on food production & transportation costs)

Yes literally on everything! I only buy non essentials when they are on a good offer. We've cut back on crisps and chocolate as i refuse to pay the extortionate amount, not to mention they constantly keep increasing if!

For meat and poultry, try your local butcher, you'll get it much cheaper!

I found this receipt, Tesco in 2014 which was interesting

My food shopping bill has increased massively since Covid, its scary how much we spend on food now.
Ive been using this cashback app (you buy gift vouchers to pay for your shopping and use them instead of cash. It won't save you massive amounts but 4% back on a £100 weekly shop soon adds up.
https://app.jamdoughnut.com/SNSL
Just for transparency that is my referral link.

I think crisps have gone up a lot. Sainsbury’s own finest used to be £1 for ages - now £1.60.
Kettle chips are about £2.50 a bag now - I only buy when they are on special offer.

It’s not you @FeministUnderTheCatriarchy - I read it as heavy sarcasm about middle class privilege too.

Yes I shop with Asda and get delivery's and it's usually one of the cheaper shops but recently I want in my local co op and noticed some things were actually cheaper in there than they are in Asda now!

I am constantly shocked by how little I have in my basket to how much it costs!
I'm thinking of changing from Sainsbury's as the use by dates are awful! Maybe different warehouses.

Food has been very cheap for a long time.

With regards to the chicken, the egg would’ve been laid, put under a heat lamp, the chick fed and cultivated to an adult, then the bird would’ve been slaughtered, plucked, dismembered, and the food packaged and stored correctly while being transported to your supermarket. This takes at least a year.

What would be a fair price for this?

Thank you for saying that. It really read like that to me too.

I was pretty sure I had interpreted it correctly when I wrote my original comment so I felt badly that I had misunderstood

Wait until the min wage and NI increases hit in April.

Well they're only going to get higher.