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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

#871

Post by quitit »

kaanski wrote: post #198
_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

In general there seems to be a weird zeitgeist of negative exceptionalism in the UK at the moment. Not sure why but generally journos seem to write about issues like they are only hitting the UK when a simple google search shows they aren’t. It does come across like a weird concerted effort to paint the UK as collapsing since leaving the EU. The majority of journos seem to be able to write only negatively about UK cu…

The secret is the same reason why you always hear bad news about companies which seemingly are always doing really well.

It's for clicks. It's completely disingenuous and one should be wise to take a mental note of the author and publisher.

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

#872

Post by nradov »

madaxe_again wrote: post #364
nradov wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite being a net food importer, the UK continues to allow relatively high levels of immigration. While there are multiple causes for food price inflation, having more people living there certainly causes some upward pressure on prices. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...

That’s not so - were it the case, food would be more expensive in more populous countries, and this is demonstrably not the case. If anything, a larger consumer base allows greater economies of scale. This is a supply side issue, a labour issue, a border issue, and a stagnant economy issue. Productivity in the U.K. flatlined years ago, with the 2008 recession, and what is being experienced there remains the after eff…

It's not the absolute population size that matters but rather the rate of increase and the proportion of imported food.

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

#873

Post by pindab0ter »

tmtvl wrote: post #867
m_stone_code wrote: post #550

Living in the UK, yes food prices are rising. But I work for an NGO whose main focus is in East Africa and I've been tracking food inflation there and seeing 200-400% jumps over the past three years. Perfect storm of the lack of available fertilizer, wheat shortage and poor growing seasons over the past five years is hitting everyone. I don't see it geetting better until the world adjusts; swapping to alternative cro…

Funny that you mention nitrogen fertilizer, here in Belgium there is a minor agricultural crisis going on due to the ag sector needing to reduce nitrogen emissions.

Same in the Netherlands. Except I'm not so sure about the 'minor' part.

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

#874

Post by taurath »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #797
moffkalast wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no incentive to produce more stuff if you can just price gouge your current supply for equal or more profit with less manufacturing investment. Especially for necessities like electronics or food where your entire supply will be sold regardless. You might say there's then an incentive to undercut, sure, but if you undercut too much you'll be left with no inventory as the rest of the manufacturers decide on fi…

Why not? Surely if you can get away with price gouging, then you would want to price gouge on more stuff, right? Of course, there are diminishing returns here, because as you produce more stuff, you might be able to gouge less and less. But certainly there must be some max-profit equilibrium higher than the current price, if you are already able to gouge. Price gouging usually leads to producing more stuff, if it goe…

Supermarkets in my area have a near monopoly and don’t meaningfully compete anymore - they can charge whatever people will pay. It’s all owned by Kroger and the nearest non Kroger supermarket is a dozen miles away.

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

#875

Post by jakub_g »

bombcar wrote: post #115
londons_explore wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers notice price changes. So you don't want to adjust prices unless most of your competitors are also doing so. Therefore you can see prices fixed for years, and then suddenly a sudden flurry of lots of manufacturers all raising prices 50%.

This is exactly it. Companies will actually go quite into the red on particular products to avoid a price increase "before everyone else" if they can survive else wise. There cannot be anyway Arizona Ice Tea is making the same profit today on their .99 cans that they were in 1992. And at some point that has to break unless they become a charity subsidizing aluminum-clad tea. When "the break" happens they almost alway…

Specifically about Arizona, this is super interesting:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-04-12/az-iced-te...

Long story short: they reduce costs (thinner cans, no need for heavy marketing because fixed price is the marketing) and aren't greedy, playing the long game.

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

#876

Post by _Wintermute »

unity1001 wrote: post #865
_Wintermute wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is true. The EU average is 19.5%, it's the first figure in the link I posted.

Eu average is ~9%. https://ycharts.com/indicators/europe_inflation_rate

You can't compare two different measures of inflation.

General inflation: UK 10.4% vs EU 9.9%

Food inflation: UK 18.2% vs EU 19.5%

Same reason I can't say UK inflation is 10.4% and much lower than the EU's 19.5%. They're measuring different things.

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

#877

Post by realjhol »

manojlds wrote: post #622
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…

Why is no one talking about Brexit in this whole equation? Yeah world is facing the brunt, but UK more so.

This isnt true though. The remainer narrative is being falsified in real time.

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

#878

Post by sampo »

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.

> I think the basis for this feeling is that people keep moving here. We feel it when traffic gets worse

A city in Japan would build new dense neighborhoods and a new commuter rail line to serve them. A city in California would refuse to build new homes nearby, so people are forced to live in a far-away suburb and commute 2 hours by car. Then Californians complain about increasing traffic congestion.

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

#879

Post by moltar »

hanoz wrote: post #861
louloulou wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The proportion of my local supermarket given over to toothpaste is mind blowing. It's like the beginnings of some sort of Brontitallian Shoe Event Horizon. For what is essentially just a mild abrasive plus fluoride, the baffling array of variations on a theme on display, mostly from the same few fmcg conglomerates anyway, is just ridiculous.

It’s probably a strategy. They overwhelm you with choice. So you end up with some simple heuristic like more expensive is better. Get something middle of the pack and you are still overpaying 200%.

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

#880

Post by NovaDudely »

symlinkk wrote: post #336
UncleOxidant wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw $6.99 for a pack of 12 flour tortillas yesterday. Could not believe it. At that price I'll try making my own.

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

I think growing up in poverty definitely instilled a sense of 'keep a track of every dollar!'. The one good thing I did was, my income has gone up but my spending has not. So even though I could move up in terms of buying power, I have instead bough - a very little bit - of comfort via stability.
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