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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

#841

Post by Earw0rm »

Aachen wrote: post #143
_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

I'm curious why the values aren't identical to within rounding errors for countries like the Netherlands and Belgium which are nearly the same size, in essentially the same location, and don't have different amounts of welfare like north/south Korea or USA/MX. Can't be that one has tech or purchasing power that the other doesn't, or that food needs to travel a lot further, and I would also not expect vastly different…

A shortage of low-cost labour on which the UK has long been (perhaps too) reliant, and reduced inefficiency (= higher cost of) the import process.

Or, in a word, Brexit.

Everywhere is getting inflation. Supply chain disruption, Ukraine war and a dash of climate change (hasn't really bitten yet compared to the other two). Britain seems to be getting about 5% more than everywhere else.

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

#842

Post by louloulou »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #782
andy_ppp wrote: post #137

I cannot believe supermarkets these days, it is insane the increases in prices, I’ve seen £5 for a tube of normal toothpaste and £6 for a tiny Pizza that is sometimes available for £3. How people on modest salaries survive I don’t know. Quite often I’m starting to notice dark patterns in pricing where things you normally didn’t worry about will have randomly increased by £2-3 and you get the checkout and you’ve spent…

Two of the most well-known toothpaste brands in the UK are still selling their most 'basic' toothpastes for 100ml for £1, which I don't think is much of a rise on what it's been for the last few years (I think I used to get 125ml for that price). People on modest salaries either don't spot the cheaper, just-as-good toothpaste that's not as prominent, they think that it's not as good as the ones with lists of all the…

> most 'basic' toothpastes for 100ml for £1, which I don't think is much of a rise on what it's been for the last few years (I think I used to get 125ml for that price).

Going from 125mL to 100mL for the same price => 20% price inflation.

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

#843

Post by legitster »

boc wrote: post #727
legitster wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty lazy narrative. Prices are rising even in non-branded goods and markets. Smaller retailers are not-undercutting the bigger retailers. Couscous and margarine and eggs being more expensive across the board at the supplier level. This does not speak to any sort of cartel behavior.

I appreciate the feedback, but I think it's unhelpful to dismiss what I said as "lazy". I have an economics background and am certainly not a "blame corporations" reactionary. Companies are smart. When news gets spread far and wide about a shortage of eggs or other products due to disease or wars or "supply chain issues", they leap to take advantage of this consumer consciousness by increasing their prices, knowing t…

Sure, but firms reacting normally to consumer price inelasticity during supply shocks is not exactly noteworthy. The noteworthy thing here is that there are supply shocks on so many different fronts at once.

I don't deny that corporations will try to make a buck taking advantage of favorable price-over-volume plays when they can, but I think it's crazy that people think during a global energy and fertilizer shortage Walmart just decided to throw out all of their low-price volume corporate strategy just to screw customers over egg prices.

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

#844

Post by wyre »

908B64B197 wrote: post #506
jll29 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity reates in the US, from my observation, are a compound effect of the unavailability of affordable, healthy ingredients (fruits, vegetables) and cultural factors (a custom of never cooking healthy meals, for instance rice and vegetables, instead of consuming carb-heavy burgers and sugary milk shakes and coke at fast food outlets). Friends in the US drove school buses during the day and worked at Wendy's at nigh…

> the unavailability of affordable, healthy ingredients (fruits, vegetables) That's a complete lie. It's way cheaper to purchase healthy ingredients and cook than to get fast food. It's completely cultural.

Yes, and we have a culture of overwork so even if people did want to cook at home they’re too exhausted or short on time to consistently cook healthy meals.

If humans behave rationally and eating healthy is cheaper and healthier why don’t more people do it?

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

#845

Post by RC_ITR »

ajmurmann wrote: post #313
RC_ITR wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to grok but inflation is just the “price of money” in terms of goods and services. (I.e. I can ‘buy’ one pound with X good) Inflation only negatively affects the poor in that their wages are sticky and do not adjust in time (so in effect, their wages in goods and services terms declines) The same thing happens to rich people, it’s actually a “capital owner vs salary man” divide. (A small building owner is i…

I first really liked the athlete example, but now think that that also depends on where the athlete is in their career and what they have done with their past income. A athlete a little bit later in their career, should have substantial investments unless that more than make up for the inflation impacting the value of their current salary. They probably also have a steady stream of sponsorship deals that get (re-)neg…

>A athlete a little bit later in their career, should have substantial investments

Yes, that makes them a capital owner, but it's hard to make a metaphor where people aren't allowed to buy stocks with their excess money.

>They probably also have a steady stream of sponsorship deals that get (re-)negotiated more frequently than salary at McDonald's

Sure, but that still makes them worse off than a capital owner.

>Very similar dynamics probably hold almost by definition for anyone who is wealthy.

Sure, but a relatively low-wealth landlord is hurt less than a wealthy banker who consumes most of their salary. That's the only point- that it's more than rich/poor, even if the true nuance is correlated to rich/poor.

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

#846

Post by zeroonetwothree »

rhacker wrote: post #771
scoofy wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The negative moralizing of other people existing is genuinely out of control in California. From housing, to transportation, to climate change, to conservation, the major cities just causally like to pretend that if we can may other people go away, it'll solve our problems. It's thrown around causally like it's the state of nature, or an actual workable solution to anything.

I think the basis for this feeling is that people keep moving here. We feel it when traffic gets worse, etc... Not really sure IF there's a real solution. The more people there are, the worse things get in small spaces. We have an entire country that is mostly empty.

California is mostly empty too. It's larger than Japan and has almost 3x fewer people.

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

#847

Post by 88913527 »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #782
andy_ppp wrote: post #137

I cannot believe supermarkets these days, it is insane the increases in prices, I’ve seen £5 for a tube of normal toothpaste and £6 for a tiny Pizza that is sometimes available for £3. How people on modest salaries survive I don’t know. Quite often I’m starting to notice dark patterns in pricing where things you normally didn’t worry about will have randomly increased by £2-3 and you get the checkout and you’ve spent…

Two of the most well-known toothpaste brands in the UK are still selling their most 'basic' toothpastes for 100ml for £1, which I don't think is much of a rise on what it's been for the last few years (I think I used to get 125ml for that price). People on modest salaries either don't spot the cheaper, just-as-good toothpaste that's not as prominent, they think that it's not as good as the ones with lists of all the…

There's other dimensions than the quality of the toothpaste. The dispenser provides a significantly better usability experience if you're willing to spend an extra $1. The cheapest toothpastes are screw caps that can fall on the floor and take a few moments take off and put on. The hinged pop open/closed interface is simpler.

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

#848

Post by zarzavat »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #164
vanderZwan wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you just confirming what they said?

Not really, people could eat cheaper food. Not to mention that most people eat too many calories.

Cheaper food is cheaper for a reason. The human body doesn’t just require calories. You need other nutrients too: protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. Usual advice is to eat a balanced diet, but that is expensive. Even eggs are expensive.

If everybody starts eating even more trash than usual then that will cost the government more in healthcare costs.

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

#849

Post by zeroonetwothree »

samstave wrote: post #561
lepus wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the car works fine, why waste time buying a new car. Even if doesn't care about money, surely even taking 1 hour or whatever isn't worth it.

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

#850

Post by zeroonetwothree »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #704
samstave wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didnt grow up poor, and I have made "tech money" my entire career - but I very often check cent/oz on products - because I dont like being cheated at that level... HOWEVER. Annecdote: I was at dinner in SF - and we were at a very nice restaurant, nice wine, food etc. My buddy was kvetching over buying this watch, which was something like $200 and was talking about how he wasnt sure if it was worth it... I looked at…

> I very often check cent/oz on products - because I dont like being cheated at that level. You have to do this in the cereal aisle! All the different-sized boxes of the same exact cereal have wildly different price-per-weight. And the largest-sized box is rarely the cheapest-per-weight! what surprised me is how expensive plain Cheerios have become. My wife explained it as if I were stupid - they are mostly whole gra…

The Trader Joe's cheerios equivalent is 3x cheaper and tastes the same
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