> Food inflation hit its highest rate since 1977 last month, having risen to 18.2% in the year to Februaury [sic] 2023. Doesn't anybody read what they write?
Ai would’ve never made this mistake!
UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
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Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Europe is also experiencing high inflation.
War ends sooner or later but Brexit and it's effects are here to stay forever.
Sure, but keep in mind that will be true regardless of whether its "effects" turn out to be the same effects you're predicting.
Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#103Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#104Demand for food is inelastic, so it makes sense that companies are raising prices as high as possible since people still have to eat. Generally this leads to price competition from other food brands, but when single companies own dozens/hundreds of food brands it’s easy to act like a cartel and keep prices high.
Acting like "food" is a company is absurd, there is a ton of competition and substitution in the market, no one actor has the capacity to influence "food" prices in general. If they did, then were they just being altruistic three years ago by not raising prices?
Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some reason they didn't want to cash in before?
One hypothesis I have is that as food and labor costs have increased, people eat out less and generate more store traffic. Those shoppers are stuck with the decision to cook and their demand on a per store basis is more inelastic.
There have been some wage rises for UK supermarket workers. But food is food: restaurants are seeing their costs rise too.
Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#106Meanwhile in Sweden the CEO of ICA, the largest supermarket chain in the country (53% of the market) said yesterday: "It is actually the consumer who controls what they are prepared to pay for a product. In the end, it is they who decide." https://omni.se/icas-vd-det-ar-kunderna-som-avgor-matpriset/...
The consumer decides what they are prepared to pay for a product, unless the demand is inelastic. And for food overall, the demand is inelastic. Consumers cannot just say "food is too expensive for me, so I think I'm going to to go without it this month". They can choose between the individual products they buy, so it wouldn't be a problem if just some food items got expensive. But the price of food overall is inflat…
Demand for food overall is inelastic, but the demand for specific foodstuffs is elastic. The measure of inflation we're discussing is across all foodstuffs.
Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#107[flagged]
I think the UK was doomed inside or outside Europe. Not quite sure why, but their relative productivity per worker has been dropping since 2007 compared to all other developed nations. [1] With low productivity, it doesn't matter if you have sweet trade deals - you're still going to decline eventually. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47826195.amp
The culture in the UK is to live for the weekend. Weekend consisting of getting drunk and watching football. A lot of the people carrying it both in blue collar and white collar jobs are foreigners. Even when it comes to academics, go to any top university and you will forget you are in the UK.
Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#108Demand for food is inelastic, so it makes sense that companies are raising prices as high as possible since people still have to eat. Generally this leads to price competition from other food brands, but when single companies own dozens/hundreds of food brands it’s easy to act like a cartel and keep prices high.
[flagged]
Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#109The Economist ran a story the other week on the topic of food costs talking about how the tomato can be looked at as a type of energy store & how British supermarkets differ from other European supermarket chains by rationing out veg rather than increasing pricing. [0] This was to say the "shortages" were more of a quirk of the British market rather than purely due to Brexit.
0. https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/03/02/britains-tomato...
Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years
#110Demand for food is inelastic, so it makes sense that companies are raising prices as high as possible since people still have to eat. Generally this leads to price competition from other food brands, but when single companies own dozens/hundreds of food brands it’s easy to act like a cartel and keep prices high.
This isn't how the market works in the UK, or anywhere close to it (because distribution is heavily consolidated).
The main change has been energy prices (it is complex because supermarkets stopped selling some products, so the price recorded is not what consumers experienced because the product largely wasn't available).
Also, just generally, that isn't how demand for food works either. It isn't elastic, there are substitutes for every product. The main factor driving differences between countries is usually the structure of the food supply chain and exposure to trade.