23 ms·

UK grocery price inflation hits record 14.7%

112 points by open-source-ux 4y ago

open-source-ux 4y ago
Apologies for the wrong URL, the correct URL is: https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/fmcg/2022-wp-uk-grocery-price-inflation-hits-record-14-7-and-still-too-early-to-call-the-ceiling https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/fmcg/2022-wp-uk-groce...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Victerius 4y ago
And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen? Well, the lamb now costs £5.19/kg. [1] 'Dem pleasant pastures be getting expensive. [1] https://ahdb.org.uk/gb-deadweight-sheep-prices https://ahdb.org.uk/gb-deadweight-sheep-prices
- EliRivers 4y ago
  519.5 pence per kg, surely. Expensive, sure, but not 100 times as expensive.
- iso1631 4y ago
  No it doesn't. It costs £5.195 per kg
  - ljf 4y ago
    Nothing less than over £10 a kg here - unless you want liver/kidney/heart: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/fresh-meat-and-poultry/fresh-lamb https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/fresh-...
    - swarnie 4y ago
      OP is quoting slaughtered carcass price by the looks of it. Tesco will include butchering, transport and resale. Lots of farmers will sell you a lamb broken down if you make enquiries and its slightly cheaper.
- camjw 4y ago
  I think you're out by, um, 4 orders of magnitude? I'm reading your post as £51950/kg i.e. 50k a kilo. But actually your link puts the prices as a very respectable 519.5p a kilo i.e. roughly a fiver a kilo which is in the right ballpark for me. Maybe this was a joke that I didn't get? EDIT: You edited your post after I made this, but like a fiver a kilo for lamb sounds pretty doable to me.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    > fiver a kilo for lamb sounds pretty doable to me That's wholesale/supplier pricing, not supermarket/butcher. No idea what GP's point was though so I'm not commenting on/defending anything else!
    - ljf 4y ago
      Yeah - I have no idea where I can buy lamb that cheap. We can get deer really cheap from a pest control guy, and we still pay more than £5 a kg (think he charges £5 a pound, as he is old school) and it is some of the cheapest (and best) meat we can buy. Unfortunately once my wife and kids realised what type of deer is was (generally the little muntjac deer) they all went off it.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  That is not how much lamb costs - nobody’s believing you.
Retric 4y ago
Link broken, here’s different source: Inflation unexpectedly dipped to 9.9% in August, down from 10.1% in July, on the back of a fuel price decline. Increasing food, transport and energy prices were the biggest contributing factors to inflation, the ONS said. Food was up 14.6% year-on-year, transport was up 10.9% compared to last year, while the price of furniture and household goods rose 10.8%. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/19/uk-inflation-rate-rises-to-10point1percent-as-food-and-energy-prices-continue-surge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/19/uk-inflation-rate-rises-to-1...
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  As european countries scramble to buy energy so their local economies can keep the lights on, it will of course raise energy prices that other countries use to buy and ship things. There's a game to played here on which country receives most of the pain, but everyone loses in absolute terms.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Its always the third world countries.
- benj111 4y ago
  That links a bit out of date... >Questions are now being raised over how long Truss will remain in office
  - rtanks 4y ago
    I'd say it was way out of date
    - Retric 4y ago
      In terms of inflation it’s covering 50 of the last 52 weeks, so hardly irrelevant.
benj111 4y ago
>Food and drink spending is generally non-discretionary so it’s not easy for shoppers to cut back. I would bet that the majority of spending by nearly all people in the supermarket is discretionary spending. It isn't the bread veg and meat that push the bill up for me, it's the alcohol, Sweet things etc, and that's ignoring all the stuff on the centre isles. So I don't really agree with this statement at all edit: I am wrong, posted below, but I'll put it here too. the uk spends £117.97 on food and non alcoholic drinks annually https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1110322/fsp-csv1_6-11oct22.csv/preview https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... £27 billion on alcohol consumption in the home https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoholic-drinks-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-since-2005/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoh... savory snacks seem to be around £3bn, sweets around £6bn, and the soft drink market around £10bn So it doesn't really get close, no matter how you slice it. total supermarket spend is £188bn https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/supermarkets/ https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/superma... So actual food still makes up the majority of sales, which im surprised by.
- pwm 4y ago
  Not sure if you’d win that bet or not but my anecdata is that me and probably the majority of my social circle spend near-0 on alcohol and sweets. They/we buy good quality food and that became mighty expensive.
  - benj111 4y ago
    No I think youre probably right the uk spends £117.97 on food and non alcoholic drinks annually https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1110322/fsp-csv1_6-11oct22.csv/preview https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... £27 billion on alcohol consumption in the home https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoholic-drinks-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-since-2005/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoh... savory snacks seem to be around £3bn, sweets around £6bn, and the soft drink market around £10bn So it doesn't really get close, no matter how you slice it. total supermarket spend is £188bn https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/supermarkets/ https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/superma... So actual food still makes up the majority of sales, which im surprised by.
woodruffw 4y ago
Could a UK HN'er give a first-hand perspective? I'm curious to hear what it's like "on the ground" in your area, versus what a government or industry announcement might say. At least for the US, it's a lot more nuanced than "inflation is X%" -- certain things are consistently more expensive, others are more variable, and others yet are cheaper/the same price. I'd like to understand if it's the same there.
- conjectures 4y ago
  One really noticeable thing is the shrinkflation. Packets for everything getting smaller in supermarkets.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    I've noticed this for "junk" goods in the US (e.g. candy and chips), but less so for normal groceries (since most things are sold in common sizes, or have distinctive shapes). Is it your impression that shrinkflation is happening uniformly, or is it isolated to particular goods?
    - taylodl 4y ago
      I'm starting to see shrinkflation happen with staples such as flour and sugar. Have definitely noticed it now that we're preparing for the holiday bake. The price of butter has remained remarkably stable here in the States. Spices are also getting more expensive. The name brand spices have always been expensive, but now even the store brand spices are soaring in cost.
      - woodruffw 4y ago
        That's interesting -- in my part of the US flour and sugar have been pretty consistent, but butter is much more expensive (like $6-7/lb) when it isn't on sale.
      - bearmode 4y ago
        I bake a lot, haven't noticed flour or sugar getting any smaller? They're the same size bags as they always are
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nells 4y ago
Is it better or worse in Europe? Prices have gone up by a lot but it’s hard to quantify.
- asdajksah2123 4y ago
  It's as bad or better. Which shouldn't be the case because Europe is far more dependent on Russian oil/gas than the UK ever was. Which does indicate a significant bit of the problem in the UK is the B word, but we don't talk about that anymore, now that we've been assured it's been done.
- _trackno5 4y ago
  Hard to say. I’m in Ireland (Republic), which while technically part of the EU is economically close to the UK. Prices have gone up a lot. Just as an example, I used to get skyr (type of thick yoghurt) for €1.99/kg at Aldi in January. Now it’s going for €2.79/kg and it seems like it’ll just keep getting more expensive. My grocery costs gave easily gone up around €100/month
locallost 4y ago
It's (likely) exacerbated by the pound tanking, the Eurozone is similarly affected. I visited Switzerland recently after a year off and the price hikes are there too, but not as noticeable as in other countries in Europe.
ponyous 4y ago
I just get a contact us page trying to open this website? Was it taken off?
superkuh 4y ago
It's not UK, but I get the feeling this isn't so much inflation as opportunistic behavior. See grocery corporation CEOs bragging about price gouging under the cover of "inflation" during investor calls, https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/17/united-states-vs-vons/#pricing-power https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/17/united-states-vs-vons/#pr... >As Kroger CEO told his shareholders: "a little bit of inflation is always good in our business" because it lets him raise prices and "customers don’t overly react." Over 50% of the rise in prices for groceries during the pandemic are from corporate profits. Raises in input costs (38%) and labor (7%) made up most of the rest. When the price raise is 50% increased profit during a time where a large fraction cannot afford enough to eat this is price gouging. It is extremely clear. https://www.salon.com/2022/10/19/katie-porter-pulls-out-chart-at-hearing-to-show-corporate-greed-is-the-biggest-driver-of-inflation_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2022/10/19/katie-porter-pulls-out-char... https://porter.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=498 https://porter.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID...
- lost_tourist 4y ago
  This is precisely why I have cut back to only staple ingredients. I refuse to give them the premiums they've artificially put on top of actual inflation because there are is so little competition in the market. I've learned to cook a lot better as well. I just don't participate any more in name brands/movies/etc I wait on the cheap version of stuff now and find that I'm not really missing out on anything.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    The problem is that they get you in the long run when inflation erodes away the money you would have saved. There needs to be some sort of stable way of transferring that value into a medium that can retain it. I don't think anything exists that can satisfy this requirement. Everything i've seen (Bitcoin, gold, etc.) has not cut the mustard.
- mimikatz 4y ago
  Inflation is prices rising and people willing to pay them. It isn't gouging for if Mars wants to raise the price of a snickers 50 cents when their costs only rise 25 cents. That is them adjusting to the market. If money wasn't sloshing around people would go. I don't need a 50 cent more snickers bar or I will by a cheaper substitute good (pork instead of steak) and prices wouldn't rise as much. But the consumer is willing to pay more hence the price goes up.
ilaksh 4y ago
The link goes to a contact us page on my phone. I assume that it's a combination of the war in Ukraine and other factors contributing to inflation. And that people will respond saying the war has nothing to do with it. But I think they are in denial.

Apologies for the wrong URL, the correct URL is: https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/fmcg/2022-wp-uk-grocery-price-inflation-hits-record-14-7-and-still-too-early-to-call-the-ceiling https://www.kantar.com/uki/inspiration/fmcg/2022-wp-uk-groce...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Victerius 4y ago

And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen? Well, the lamb now costs £5.19/kg. [1] 'Dem pleasant pastures be getting expensive. [1] https://ahdb.org.uk/gb-deadweight-sheep-prices https://ahdb.org.uk/gb-deadweight-sheep-prices

EliRivers 4y ago
519.5 pence per kg, surely. Expensive, sure, but not 100 times as expensive.
iso1631 4y ago
No it doesn't. It costs £5.195 per kg
- ljf 4y ago
  Nothing less than over £10 a kg here - unless you want liver/kidney/heart: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/fresh-meat-and-poultry/fresh-lamb https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/fresh-...
  - swarnie 4y ago
    OP is quoting slaughtered carcass price by the looks of it. Tesco will include butchering, transport and resale. Lots of farmers will sell you a lamb broken down if you make enquiries and its slightly cheaper.
camjw 4y ago
I think you're out by, um, 4 orders of magnitude? I'm reading your post as £51950/kg i.e. 50k a kilo. But actually your link puts the prices as a very respectable 519.5p a kilo i.e. roughly a fiver a kilo which is in the right ballpark for me. Maybe this was a joke that I didn't get? EDIT: You edited your post after I made this, but like a fiver a kilo for lamb sounds pretty doable to me.
- OJFord 4y ago
  > fiver a kilo for lamb sounds pretty doable to me That's wholesale/supplier pricing, not supermarket/butcher. No idea what GP's point was though so I'm not commenting on/defending anything else!
  - ljf 4y ago
    Yeah - I have no idea where I can buy lamb that cheap. We can get deer really cheap from a pest control guy, and we still pay more than £5 a kg (think he charges £5 a pound, as he is old school) and it is some of the cheapest (and best) meat we can buy. Unfortunately once my wife and kids realised what type of deer is was (generally the little muntjac deer) they all went off it.
chrisseaton 4y ago
That is not how much lamb costs - nobody’s believing you.

Retric 4y ago

Link broken, here’s different source: Inflation unexpectedly dipped to 9.9% in August, down from 10.1% in July, on the back of a fuel price decline. Increasing food, transport and energy prices were the biggest contributing factors to inflation, the ONS said. Food was up 14.6% year-on-year, transport was up 10.9% compared to last year, while the price of furniture and household goods rose 10.8%. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/19/uk-inflation-rate-rises-to-10point1percent-as-food-and-energy-prices-continue-surge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/19/uk-inflation-rate-rises-to-1...

spywaregorilla 4y ago
As european countries scramble to buy energy so their local economies can keep the lights on, it will of course raise energy prices that other countries use to buy and ship things. There's a game to played here on which country receives most of the pain, but everyone loses in absolute terms.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Its always the third world countries.
benj111 4y ago
That links a bit out of date... >Questions are now being raised over how long Truss will remain in office
- rtanks 4y ago
  I'd say it was way out of date
  - Retric 4y ago
    In terms of inflation it’s covering 50 of the last 52 weeks, so hardly irrelevant.

benj111 4y ago

>Food and drink spending is generally non-discretionary so it’s not easy for shoppers to cut back. I would bet that the majority of spending by nearly all people in the supermarket is discretionary spending. It isn't the bread veg and meat that push the bill up for me, it's the alcohol, Sweet things etc, and that's ignoring all the stuff on the centre isles. So I don't really agree with this statement at all edit: I am wrong, posted below, but I'll put it here too. the uk spends £117.97 on food and non alcoholic drinks annually https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1110322/fsp-csv1_6-11oct22.csv/preview https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... £27 billion on alcohol consumption in the home https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoholic-drinks-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-since-2005/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoh... savory snacks seem to be around £3bn, sweets around £6bn, and the soft drink market around £10bn So it doesn't really get close, no matter how you slice it. total supermarket spend is £188bn https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/supermarkets/ https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/superma... So actual food still makes up the majority of sales, which im surprised by.

pwm 4y ago
Not sure if you’d win that bet or not but my anecdata is that me and probably the majority of my social circle spend near-0 on alcohol and sweets. They/we buy good quality food and that became mighty expensive.
- benj111 4y ago
  No I think youre probably right the uk spends £117.97 on food and non alcoholic drinks annually https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1110322/fsp-csv1_6-11oct22.csv/preview https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... £27 billion on alcohol consumption in the home https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoholic-drinks-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-since-2005/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281935/spending-on-alcoh... savory snacks seem to be around £3bn, sweets around £6bn, and the soft drink market around £10bn So it doesn't really get close, no matter how you slice it. total supermarket spend is £188bn https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/supermarkets/ https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-size/superma... So actual food still makes up the majority of sales, which im surprised by.

woodruffw 4y ago

Could a UK HN'er give a first-hand perspective? I'm curious to hear what it's like "on the ground" in your area, versus what a government or industry announcement might say. At least for the US, it's a lot more nuanced than "inflation is X%" -- certain things are consistently more expensive, others are more variable, and others yet are cheaper/the same price. I'd like to understand if it's the same there.

conjectures 4y ago
One really noticeable thing is the shrinkflation. Packets for everything getting smaller in supermarkets.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I've noticed this for "junk" goods in the US (e.g. candy and chips), but less so for normal groceries (since most things are sold in common sizes, or have distinctive shapes). Is it your impression that shrinkflation is happening uniformly, or is it isolated to particular goods?
  - taylodl 4y ago
    I'm starting to see shrinkflation happen with staples such as flour and sugar. Have definitely noticed it now that we're preparing for the holiday bake. The price of butter has remained remarkably stable here in the States. Spices are also getting more expensive. The name brand spices have always been expensive, but now even the store brand spices are soaring in cost.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      That's interesting -- in my part of the US flour and sugar have been pretty consistent, but butter is much more expensive (like $6-7/lb) when it isn't on sale.
    - bearmode 4y ago
      I bake a lot, haven't noticed flour or sugar getting any smaller? They're the same size bags as they always are

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nells 4y ago

Is it better or worse in Europe? Prices have gone up by a lot but it’s hard to quantify.

asdajksah2123 4y ago
It's as bad or better. Which shouldn't be the case because Europe is far more dependent on Russian oil/gas than the UK ever was. Which does indicate a significant bit of the problem in the UK is the B word, but we don't talk about that anymore, now that we've been assured it's been done.
_trackno5 4y ago
Hard to say. I’m in Ireland (Republic), which while technically part of the EU is economically close to the UK. Prices have gone up a lot. Just as an example, I used to get skyr (type of thick yoghurt) for €1.99/kg at Aldi in January. Now it’s going for €2.79/kg and it seems like it’ll just keep getting more expensive. My grocery costs gave easily gone up around €100/month

locallost 4y ago

It's (likely) exacerbated by the pound tanking, the Eurozone is similarly affected. I visited Switzerland recently after a year off and the price hikes are there too, but not as noticeable as in other countries in Europe.

ponyous 4y ago

I just get a contact us page trying to open this website? Was it taken off?

superkuh 4y ago

It's not UK, but I get the feeling this isn't so much inflation as opportunistic behavior. See grocery corporation CEOs bragging about price gouging under the cover of "inflation" during investor calls, https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/17/united-states-vs-vons/#pricing-power https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/17/united-states-vs-vons/#pr... >As Kroger CEO told his shareholders: "a little bit of inflation is always good in our business" because it lets him raise prices and "customers don’t overly react." Over 50% of the rise in prices for groceries during the pandemic are from corporate profits. Raises in input costs (38%) and labor (7%) made up most of the rest. When the price raise is 50% increased profit during a time where a large fraction cannot afford enough to eat this is price gouging. It is extremely clear. https://www.salon.com/2022/10/19/katie-porter-pulls-out-chart-at-hearing-to-show-corporate-greed-is-the-biggest-driver-of-inflation_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2022/10/19/katie-porter-pulls-out-char... https://porter.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=498 https://porter.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID...

lost_tourist 4y ago
This is precisely why I have cut back to only staple ingredients. I refuse to give them the premiums they've artificially put on top of actual inflation because there are is so little competition in the market. I've learned to cook a lot better as well. I just don't participate any more in name brands/movies/etc I wait on the cheap version of stuff now and find that I'm not really missing out on anything.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  The problem is that they get you in the long run when inflation erodes away the money you would have saved. There needs to be some sort of stable way of transferring that value into a medium that can retain it. I don't think anything exists that can satisfy this requirement. Everything i've seen (Bitcoin, gold, etc.) has not cut the mustard.
mimikatz 4y ago
Inflation is prices rising and people willing to pay them. It isn't gouging for if Mars wants to raise the price of a snickers 50 cents when their costs only rise 25 cents. That is them adjusting to the market. If money wasn't sloshing around people would go. I don't need a 50 cent more snickers bar or I will by a cheaper substitute good (pork instead of steak) and prices wouldn't rise as much. But the consumer is willing to pay more hence the price goes up.

ilaksh 4y ago

The link goes to a contact us page on my phone. I assume that it's a combination of the war in Ukraine and other factors contributing to inflation. And that people will respond saying the war has nothing to do with it. But I think they are in denial.