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Will food prices go down again or is this it?

61 replies

UserNameSameGame · 10/02/2023 19:29

I was reading something about how the majority of the inflation cost is food and power costs, and how that is disproportionately affecting anyone at the lower end of the income range. So someone on e.g. £30k is seeing 10-15% inflation, but someone on £200k is only seeing 3-4% because proportionally less of the things purchased are affected.

I am also shocked at how much food has gone up by. Obviously I knew it had gone up a lot, but I usually get a weekly delivery so didn’t really attribute it to things we weren’t regularly buying. Yesterday I had to pop into the supermarket to get something we had run out of, and randomly browsed the isles. A year ago I would have ended up with a dozen additional things in the basket but this time I was so put off by the prices.

So the question is, will food prices come down again eventually, or will we just have to wait until wages at some point catch up? And if the latter, does that mean that non-essentials will have proportionally gone down?

OP posts:
Nimbostratus100 · 10/02/2023 19:30

inflation will come down. Which means prices will continue to rise, but more slowly

UserNameSameGame · 10/02/2023 19:41

Nimbostratus100 · 10/02/2023 19:30

inflation will come down. Which means prices will continue to rise, but more slowly

Yes, I realise that, but I am wondering if specifically food will see a period of negative inflation i.e. reduce in price.

OP posts:
Dragonsandcats · 10/02/2023 19:43

Yes I was wondering that too. I can’t see prices decreasing but I wash they would.

UserNameSameGame · 10/02/2023 19:49

Found an unexpectedly interesting article on it in the Daily Mail

www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-11710035/As-shoppers-face-800-rise-weekly-shop-cost-2023-food-prices-down.html

Particularly the last few paragraphs.

OP posts:
Hermione101 · 10/02/2023 19:54

You need deflation for prices to fall, so less demand than supply. I think with Brexit and a China opening putting pressure on energy, this is unlikely to happen. I'm not sure how it works, I'm not an economist, but there must be "price discovery" at some point, so the point at which consumers won't or can't pay anymore.

I don't know if it's just my imagination, but it seems like I'm seeing a lot more offers on my online shop that drives prices down to what some things were pre-inflation.

tornadoinsideoutfig · 10/02/2023 19:56

I think there will be offers on junk food or price cuts on stables to get people back to a particular supermarket but I don't see the price of a full weekly shop coming down.

mumda · 10/02/2023 20:15

Ukraine produced huge quantities of food for the planet. That needs to get back to pre war levels and have a couple of good harvests before we're out of the red on food deficit inflation.

Weather patterns creating havoc means trouble too.

Godislaughingatme · 10/02/2023 20:44

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

dudsville · 10/02/2023 20:57

It's been so steep. Pre pandemic we regularly recieved vouchers for shopping at our sainsburys, so £10 off a £90 shop kind of deal. And for that i could buy salmon and chicken, wine, and we averaged £85 pw over the year. They stopped the vouchers in the pandemic. And now i struggle to keep the shop below £110, no fish or chicken, i stock up on veg now and we eat more beans. It's good in a lot of ways, but it's shocking how much it costs.

Whiskers4 · 10/02/2023 20:57

I read earlier Unilever think the cost of their products will stablise later in the year. No mention of them coming down.

I suspect we my see minor reductions on some products, but higher prices are here to stay, but inflation will slow down after reaching peak levels.

SpottyBumPony · 10/02/2023 20:59

No, I think supermarkets will pocket the profit

Mintakan · 10/02/2023 21:02

mumda · 10/02/2023 20:15

Ukraine produced huge quantities of food for the planet. That needs to get back to pre war levels and have a couple of good harvests before we're out of the red on food deficit inflation.

Weather patterns creating havoc means trouble too.

You can’t blame the war when the UK is the only one seeing these hugely inflated food costs.

I live in Europe and whilst we’ve seen a slight increase because of the war, it’s nothing like it is in the UK.

Brexit and greedy politicians have screwed the country.

UserNameSameGame · 10/02/2023 21:04

What I find particularly interesting though is that, if it doesn’t come down, it will have had a longer term impact on economic imbalance.

If you are lower income, a higher proportion of your income is spent on food, therefore more impact.

Let’s say good prices stabilise and wages gradually increase, other goods will still stay proportionally less expensive compared to food, which means someone on a higher income will forevermore be proportionally better off.

Only if food prices come down in relation to other goods does that change.

OP posts:
OhmygodDont · 10/02/2023 21:05

Look at petrol. It never true it comes down down. It might drop to less than right now but never cheaper than before. I’d advise anyone to grow little bits that they can and find their local sharing cupboards/kitchens.

UserNameSameGame · 10/02/2023 21:09

OhmygodDont · 10/02/2023 21:05

Look at petrol. It never true it comes down down. It might drop to less than right now but never cheaper than before. I’d advise anyone to grow little bits that they can and find their local sharing cupboards/kitchens.

Petrol here is £1.49 I think (or thereabouts), which is MUCH cheaper than it was for MONTHS. So to my mind that has certainly gone down.

OP posts:
OhmygodDont · 10/02/2023 21:12

UserNameSameGame · 10/02/2023 21:09

Petrol here is £1.49 I think (or thereabouts), which is MUCH cheaper than it was for MONTHS. So to my mind that has certainly gone down.

But it still Isn’t back to what is was. It’s around £1.63 for diesel here. But before all this was much cheaper but yes it’s cheaper than the £1.98 it got to but still not cheaper or as cheap as before.

BooseysMom · 10/02/2023 21:16

I noticed an increase of 15p on crumpets this week..my staple food 😳 But it's not just crumpets, everything has gone up again.

Snoken · 10/02/2023 21:23

Mintakan · 10/02/2023 21:02

You can’t blame the war when the UK is the only one seeing these hugely inflated food costs.

I live in Europe and whilst we’ve seen a slight increase because of the war, it’s nothing like it is in the UK.

Brexit and greedy politicians have screwed the country.

I’m not sure that’s true. I’m in Sweden and here food prices have gone up 14% Aug-21 and Ag-22. A similar period (Nov-Nov) the increase in the UK was 16.6%. The difference isn’t huge, but the people of the UK is used to much cheaper food.

UserNameSameGame · 10/02/2023 21:23

the people of the UK is used to much cheaper food.

Yes that is very true.

OP posts:
ElliF · 11/02/2023 04:30

Food prices will continue to rise, because the value of the GBP is going down. The pound is worth a lot less than it previously was. Over the past three years or so, we have injected 3 out of very 4 pounds in existence. So every pound that existed four years ago, is now effectively worth only 25p.

Now, you don’t see the inflation of the money supply as a loss of value in the currency, because all the other countries were doing the same thing. So the pound stayed where it was in relation to the Euro or the Dollar.

But real things like steel and oil and gas and wheat and coffee and stuff. We didn’t make four times as much of them when we made four times as much money for the world to spend. So their prices have to go up by 400% to balance it out.

It takes time, years, and it doesn’t happen evenly, because the relationship between real goods and money is very complexed and convoluted. Steel for example gets mined and moved around the world which uses oil. It gets refined which used coal or gas. Wheat has an 18 month delay because orders are placed before the wheat for the next year is planted, and it isn’t delivered until it is harvested.

And we have geopolitical strife and politics and various extremist groups to be pandered to, and the WEF plans for each of our countries to follow etc. And on top of that you have the nuances of the specific mechanism the extra money was injected into the economy.

So for example capping everyone’s fuel bills was money creation, but in reality it was delayed money creation because the energy companies give us the fuel and then hold the debt owed to the, from the government on their books as a debt which they write off over a period of time against their taxes. So the government created the money, but in reality they pulled taxation from the future into the now to give us a price cap, and will have to suffer the loss of that revenue in years to come.

Which is a good move, because the pound in the future will be worth less than the pound today, and the energy bills in the future will be higher so the taxation on the profits will be the same relative to the value of the pound today. They give an apparent benefit to make us all happy now, and they make a profit in the future because we will be paying higher energy bills due to the money supply being inflated at our request.

...

Bottom line is we’re in for price rises across the board for another three or four years, by which time staple products should level out at about £3-£4 for every £1 they cost in 2015.

It has nothing to do with Ukraine or China or Oil or Gas giants. This all stems from when we started printing money hand over fist in 2008, reduced the interest rates to zero, and never stopped printing money for 15 years. We lived the life of free money (as a country) and now we have to pay the piper.

Notice whenever they show you a graph of the Bank of England interest rate they only show you it back to 2008? It looks like a big pan with a huge flat bottom, and us spiking is to 4%, worst interest rates in 15 years!

Ever look at the 150 years before that? Ever ask yourself why the interest rate has averaged 5.25% for close on two centuries, and we’re complying about it not even yet reaching average, let alone matching inflation? Why on earth should a bank lend you £300K for a house at 6% when with inflation at 10% it is guaranteed to lose 4% on its investment. Can people afford to pay their mortgages when their interest rate hits 12%? We shall see. This is going to be a good time for first time buyers because the Govt is not going to be able to support everyone’s mortgage when inflation hits.

PlantDoctor · 11/02/2023 08:49

Deflation (opposite of inflation) is very bad for an economy, so certainly don't want that across the board.

Will food prices come down? I think they were so cheap to begin with that they're unlikely to go back to where they were, unfortunately.

ElliF · 11/02/2023 09:26

Do you mean deflation (a reduction of) the money supply?
Or a reduction in the price of goods and services in the economy?

We are going to see a reduction in the credit money in the economy. Access to credit is going to get harder and harder. Interest rates are going to rise. People will not spend as much because they won’t want to be hitting their credit cards so hard. They will try to carry less debt because they won’t want to be paying so much to do so.

Banks will get increasingly worried about people’s abilities to repay debts and will cut people’s limits and demand repayment. They will also make it harder for people to get mortgages.

Its the perfect storm for those with liquidity. House prices dropping because people can’t afford to service their mortgages, trying to sell into a market where banks are demanding higher salaries and bigger deposits.

And who gets their nails done or buys a latte when they’re fuel bill just went up another £200 a month and their Internet went up another £15 and their mobile phone bill went up another £5 and their fuel for their car is rising and the bus and train prices are rising, and the Council Tax has gone up another £30 a month?

This is demand destruction. It is very deflationary and it’s focussed at the moment on very specific places.

validnumber · 11/02/2023 09:30

Food companies are already reducing the weight in packs to keep prices the same.
A trick everyone must really dislike.
So I can't see prices coming back down.

validnumber · 11/02/2023 09:32

Apparently called shrinkflation.
You learn something new everyday!

www.itv.com/news/2023-02-02/mcvities-to-cut-number-of-biscuits-in-packs-in-latest-round-of-shrinkflation

Diamondsmile · 11/02/2023 09:34

Food prices will not go down and in some cases will need to rise even more.

Listening to egg producers it costs £1.35 to produce 12 eggs but supermarkets only willing to pay £1.20, not economically viable.

NMW increases each year without paying increased labour costs how do you produce food?

Watch Clarkson’s Farm it gives a basic insight to food production costs.