‘It’s ridiculous’: shock as some UK grocery prices rise by more than 20%

theguardian.com:

At Sainsbury’s in Whitechapel, east London, the rising cost of food has forced Petra Emmanuel to change her shopping habits.

“Coupled with my utilities bill, it’s ridiculous,” the 51-year-old teacher said. “Even though I don’t buy branded foods, it’s the simplest items that have seemed to have gone up.

“I’ve had to cut down on my meat intake, and on fish too, because of the cost. They are like luxuries now, which I will buy only once or twice a week compared to, say five times a week that I used to do.”

Her experience is being shared by shoppers across the UK who are facing “shelf shock” on almost all types of groceries. Research by Which? has found price rises of more than 20% on some goods, while official figures this week showed many staples have recorded double-digit increases.

Which? analysed the prices of more than 21,000 groceries, using average prices at eight big supermarkets, and compared costs for December last year to the end of February this year with the same period two years previously.

The analysis found that the prices of 265 lines had gone up by more than a fifth.

Which? said the items that had recorded the biggest price rises included a 500g box of Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut corn flakes cereal, which had gone up by 21.4% at Tesco, Asda’s own-label closed cup mushrooms (250g) which were up by the same percentage and Cathedral City extra mature cheddar (350g) which rose by 21.1% at Ocado.

The consumer group said it had examples of shrinkflation – where products were smaller but selling for the same price – and that between December 2021 and February this year the availability of some value ranges had been more limited than previously.

These ranges recorded the lowest inflation overall, with prices increasing by just