‘Cheap food in Britain may be coming to an end’

Food prices are increasing at an even quicker rate, according to a new analysis, which stated that the decades-long era of cheap food in Britain may be coming to an abrupt end and prices will only rise in the coming time.

The country is dealing with the fastest inflation in three decades, with the most recent reading on the consumer price index inflation was recorded at 7 percent. However, a new analysis prepared for Bloomberg highlights how average cost of supermarket staples has spiked at a much faster rate of 13.4 percent.

While a box of penne pasta led the way among the 18 items tracked, surging almost 50 percent, baked beans and white sliced bread have increased by almost 22 percent. 

Food in Britain has been comparatively cheaper than its European neighbours. However, the combined effects of Brexit to the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine is limiting supplies of everything from sunflower oil to wheat to fertilizer, a key ingredient in farming.

“In terms of prices, the only way is up,” Bloomberg quoted Honor Strachan, principal food and grocery analyst at GlobalData Plc, a research and consulting firm in London. 

“It’s something that we will have to get used to.”

Grocers, apart from higher food prices, are also dealing with wage inflation pressure. 

“I don’t think food prices will drop all the way back down to where they were because some of these shifts are structural, but the levels of inflation we’re seeing will peak,” said Richard Walker, the managing director of Iceland Foods.

“There is definitely an argument to say systemically food has been too cheap for too long.”