Impact of food inflation is unique to each individual

interactive investor comments on the ONS lowest-cost groceries inflation study.

• New ONS research, based on data for 30 everyday grocery items, shows that the lowest-priced items have increased in cost by around as much as average food and non-alcoholic drinks prices (with both rising around 6% to 7% over the 12 months to April 2022).
• For 13 of the 30 sampled items monitored, the average lowest price, across the seven retailers, increased at a faster rate than the latest available official consumer price inflation measure for food and non-alcoholic beverages.
• There is considerable variation across the 30 items, with the prices for six items falling over the year, but the prices of five items rising by 15% or more.

Commenting, Myron Jobson, Senior Personal Finance Analyst, interactive investor, says: “Shopping for groceries is taking a bigger bite out of household budgets amid the unrelenting rise in prices. The heightened cost to put food on the table is difficult to stomach at a time when the cost of seemingly everything else from energy bills to petrol is on the up.

“Many of us are feeling the inflation pinch most through the food we buy, and the headline inflation figures often drastically underestimates the extent of real-world food inflation, with some items, such as pasta up 50% in a year, while other popular items such as crisps, bread, minced beef and rice up by sizeable percentages over the same period.

“It is important to remember that every shopping basket is different and, as such, the impact of food inflation is unique to each individual. We all have our own inflation number, and it is worth keeping tabs on your spending habits to get a better idea of the goods and services that are eating most into your budget, and where you could cut back as the cost of living continues to surge. Look at what makes sense for you – not an arbitrary measurement from anyone else.”