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UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

grocerygazette.co.uk

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Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#561

Post by samstave »

lepus wrote: post #372
symlinkk wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find comments like this weird, I never think about purchases that small. I honestly have no idea how much I pay for tortillas normally but $7 would not even be a blip on my mental radar

If you don't know anyone who thinks about everyday purchases like this then you're in a social bubble. This is a normal concern for a lot of people.

Funny anecdote:

Jeff Bezos was interviewed in Pay Pal days after making many millions, and as they drove across the GGB, was asked why he was still driving his beat up honda - he said "Why, just because I have some money? Its still a good car!"

FF 2020: Jeff Bezos builds worlds most expensive yacht, and is having a municiple bridge dismantled so it can pass through, and local residents want to throw eggs at it as it passes by!

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#562

Post by chiefalchemist »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #454
samhuk wrote: post #167

As a person living in the UK, I have definitely noticed a considerable rise in unit prices. One of many examples is that a loaf of my favourite bread increased from £3 to £4 recently, which was a shocker. Toilet roll prices, as ever what the news loves to talk about, has exploded, increasing by around 70% since 2020 by my anecdotal observation. A sad thought I have about inflation is the fact that it is, wittingly or…

The lower class does suffer the most, but unfortunately it is the policies intended to help them which actually cause most of the problem. By giving money to people without producing more stuff - or even making it harder to produce the same - you MUST have inflation, rationing, or empty shelves - and often all three. The solution to allowing lower classes to have more stuff is to make it easier for everybody to produ…

> but unfortunately it is the policies intended to help them which actually cause most of the problem.

In the US, the Fed is not concerned about the bottom. They're solely concerned on the top. Check the numbers, zero interest rates did *not* trickle down. Instead they helped further increase the income inequality gap.

To blame to poor (read: the powerless) in any way, shape or form is, at best, misinformation. Worse it gives those responsible a free pass.

"I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… except by getting off his back."

Leo Tolstoy

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#563

Post by isaacremuant »

prox wrote: post #516
louwrentius wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why so convoluted. Just tax the rich (companies) properly. The resources and money is available. The current government chooses not to allocate it properly. What is happening in the UK is to me 100% the result of the current Conservative Party and their policies.

Tax the rich and they go somewhere else (see recent discussions about the wealth tax in France)

And what's good of having high GDP like Ireland (neighbour to UK) if then there's no housing and prices are insane and people who don't already have a secure situation are screwed and have to leave anyway?

Why do tax reliefs and strategies always benefit the big companies with lots of lawyers.

Lower the taxes of the common folk. Their interests are not being met, but those of the lobbyists.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#564

Post by Scarblac »

hnburnsy wrote: post #518
tacker2000 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking like inflation is some conspiracy wielded by “the rich” (who are they? Are they all friends with each other and plan all their schemes together?) against the “others”. Fact is the inflation we are seeing here is caused by the after effects of Covid, the Energy price surges caused by the Ukraine war and in the special case of UK - Brexit, which has lead to huge import shortages due to increased bureauc…

Why does Brexit have to equal "increased bureaucracy at the border"? Is it due to the lifelong bureaucrats that loves enforcing it? An effective government should do everything in its power to reduce the bureaucracy in extraordinary times.

All countries have customs checks, to check that incoming goods conform with regulations, applicable tariffs are paid, etc.

Except countries in the EU, which has a common market that made such checks unnecessary inside of it. Of course there are still customs on the outside EU border.

So if you leave that, and your borders are now not internal market borders anymore but your and the EU's external borders, you're going to do more customs checks than you used to have. In both directions.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#565

Post by lr4444lr »

pjc50 wrote: post #202
titzer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both increased wholesale food costs and price gouging. Profits have never been higher all along the board. Everyone in the chain is "passing the cost on" and also taking a little extra cut.

I've seen a convincing argument that this is energy price inflation being passed on down the pipe. Certainly for out-of-season foods grown in greenhouses, leading to the UK tomato shortage of last month. (Anyone else see "max 3 per customer" on various fresh fruit and veg?) The profits are inarguable. They really have never been higher. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/corporate-profit... (note the table u…

Profit, or profit _margin_?

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#566

Post by brewdad »

odood wrote: post #209
illiarian wrote: post #29

Meanwhile 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/...

And people will, by going to shops that are cheaper than ICA. We vote with our feet and our wallet.

I hope that continues to be an option. In my neighborhood, they finally changed the signage from a merger that happened a while ago. I now have two Safeways within a mile of my house with the next closest grocer being a high end store 4 miles away and a discount grocer 6 miles away.

I fully expect one or both of those stores to be absorbed by the Safeway/Albertsons/Kroger monolith in the next few years.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#567

Post by solveit »

benlivengood wrote: post #492
Nifty3929 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower class does suffer the most, but unfortunately it is the policies intended to help them which actually cause most of the problem. By giving money to people without producing more stuff - or even making it harder to produce the same - you MUST have inflation, rationing, or empty shelves - and often all three. The solution to allowing lower classes to have more stuff is to make it easier for everybody to produ…

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ shows that producing more stuff per person since 1978 hasn't fixed inflation (not graphed there), and we can afford less of it because real wages haven't kept up.

No, that's not what real wages mean. Real wages going up means we can afford more stuff, full stop.

The fact that real wages haven't kept up with productivity means that we can't afford as much more stuff as is being produced, but we can still afford more stuff.

I'm not making a point about society, I'm making a point about what real wages mean.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#568

Post by dukeyukey »

unity1001 wrote: post #508
_Wintermute wrote: post #87

For reference, that's a fairly average value for Europe at the moment. Not sure why the UK is being singled out. https://i.redd.it/8hbhiqhowjpa1.png

Its not average for Europe. Aside from Germany, rest of Europe is at around ~10%. The UK is being singled out because its not able to import the groceries it used to do before Brexit now - there has been a low yield crop season in most parts of Europe and the domestic demand for groceries has literally exhausted the supply that can be exported. Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic…

> Aside from Germany, rest of Europe is at around ~10%.

That isn't true at all, the UK is about the same as the Euro area taken as a whole.

> Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic supply anymore and it has to wait for what remains for export

The UK is absolutely capable of tapping EU supply, we've got an extensive free trade deal. I'm eating Spanish cherry tomatoes as I type!

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/food-inflation?con...

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#569

Post by ulfw »

Tryk wrote: post #311
tacker2000 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking like inflation is some conspiracy wielded by “the rich” (who are they? Are they all friends with each other and plan all their schemes together?) against the “others”. Fact is the inflation we are seeing here is caused by the after effects of Covid, the Energy price surges caused by the Ukraine war and in the special case of UK - Brexit, which has lead to huge import shortages due to increased bureauc…

Consider the comparison between Norway and Sweden, two extremely similar countries in almost all respects. Food inflation in Sweden is 22.1% over 12-month [0] Food inflation in Norway is 8.8% over 12-months [1] Obviously someone is making money hand-over-fist from this 12.7% discrepancy. Comments like the one above are really disruptive to any constructive conversations. It is not a conspiracy. The comment above is (…

A lot of that came from increasing energy prices. Norway is an energy producer, Sweden is an energy consumer.

Re: UK: Food inflation rises to 18.2% as it hits highest rate in over 45 years

#570

Post by PathOfEclipse »

benlivengood wrote: post #492
Nifty3929 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower class does suffer the most, but unfortunately it is the policies intended to help them which actually cause most of the problem. By giving money to people without producing more stuff - or even making it harder to produce the same - you MUST have inflation, rationing, or empty shelves - and often all three. The solution to allowing lower classes to have more stuff is to make it easier for everybody to produ…

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ shows that producing more stuff per person since 1978 hasn't fixed inflation (not graphed there), and we can afford less of it because real wages haven't kept up.

Inflation is primarily caused by governments increasing the supply of money: https://www.hoover.org/research/inflation-true-and-false.

Inflation was fixed in the U.S. when Reagan became president: https://www.pacificresearch.org/beating-back-inflation-team-...

Recent studies in fact show that wages and productivity are still linked: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/3....

And, finally other analyses show that studies on wage stagnation fail to take into account other factors, like the increase in non-wage benefits since the 70s: https://www.cato.org/projects/humanprogress/cost-of-living

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