Rising food prices are leading to horror at the checkout. While overall inflation is rising at 10.5%, food prices are up an eye-watering 16.8% in a year, and the hike in the cost of some of the everyday essentials is truly horrendous – the price of low fat milk has gone up 46%. Fortunately, there are still some ways you can keep on top of runaway food prices.
New inflation figures revealed enormous rises in the prices of vital staples over the year. Milk was the worst offender, but olive oil, sugar and cheese are all up a third or more, while butter, pasta, flour, eggs and frozen vegetables are all up more than a quarter during that time.
It’s the result of a huge number of pressures throughout the food supply chain. Take milk, for example. Farms have been under enormous price pressures as the cost of feed and fertiliser went through the roof in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The region is a major producer of both, so the collapse of supplies pushed prices up. The dry spring also worked against them, because usually all that grass growth produces bumper quantities of milk, but dry fields failed to deliver the bonus.
The higher price of milk then passed to dairy processors, who also had to deal with pressures of their own. They’ve been hit by rising energy bills in particular, because pasteurisation is an energy-intensive process. They’ve also faced more painful packaging expenses, as higher oil prices have pushed up the cost of plastic. The supermarkets have an enormous amount of buying power, but they had to accept higher prices from the processors. On top of this, they faced other pressures, from higher staff salaries, to much bigger energy bills from heating the stores and cooling their fridges and freezers.
