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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

#881

Post by p1necone »

samstave wrote: post #609
purpleturtle22 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because you probably make tech money (I do too). My family was poor growing up and we shopped by cent per oz, and noticed any significant price changes and went for alternatives. Planned dinner/produce/meat based off what was on sale, etc. Many, many people notice when milk goes up 50 cents. I still do.

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 do the same - for some reason I agonize over purchases of "permanent" things like clothing, video games etc while not blinking an eye at spending the same on "temporary" things like restaurant meals or cocktails.

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

#882

Post by fundad »

noelsusman wrote: post #12

Is this at least partially Brexit related? For comparison, the US has seen food go up by around 10% over the same time period, which is pretty high but also far from 18%. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t02.htm

Yes

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

#883

Post by tonguetrainer »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #172
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…

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.

Interesting point. With high inflation and many professions being made obsolete by AI, cooking and baking authentic cultural foods at home may become the new obsession.

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

#884

Post by unity1001 »

_Wintermute wrote: post #876
unity1001 wrote: post #865

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The argument was about inflation, not food inflation alone. Even if only food prices are considered, one can say that its hard to trust UK's numbers in anything since the Tories that are ruling there have very funny ways of measuring things. Like how they recently have declared that homeowners were actually 'creating and also consuming rent services' and bumped the UK's GDP a fair bit.

Even we gloss over it and trust the UK's own numbers, the Eu inflation in February would have been driven by mostly Germany with ~24% inflation compared to the ~10% most of the major countries have.

...

However it still does not make any difference since prices are irrelevant if there simply arent groceries and they are being rationed. That was the point.

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

#885

Post by FredPret »

ocodia wrote: post #327
FredPret wrote: post #307

I know this doesn't fit the European worldview, but if only they had Costco. They make 0-1% margin [0] on their groceries - which by the way is very high in quality. Essentially all their profit is from their annual membership fee. You have to buy massive quantities of everything though. This works well if you live in a huge North American house and have an SUV to transport your month's (year's?) groceries. [0] I saw…

We have Costco in the UK.

Perhaps but it doesn’t seem like the default option to the same extent. The model doesn’t fit Europe as well for the reasons I mentioned.

It wasn’t meant as a snide remark, only an observation about buying cheap food

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

#886

Post by NovaDudely »

cardosof wrote: post #798

Most food packaging is made with aluminium. Aluminium is down 30% YoY but up 50% in the past 3 years. It's been a wild ride for manufacturers and they increased prices to handle this. Same with energy, the average cost is 50% up from ~3 years ago. Not just electricity that powers up the factories, but the oil for everything logistics. If you're Unilever/P&G/Nestlé, what do you do? You start cutting costs (less/worse…

There is a 2007 book by john Michael Greer - "The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age". It was the first in 10 books on the subject of industrial decline over the course of a few centuries.

I wish so badly that he was wrong about these things, but every day it looks a little more like he got an absolute home run on this topic.

The only other advice I would give to people is, if there is something you need to buy now and you can - do it! Key word here is 'need'. I have been buying in bulk for years now and switching over to equipment that will last a long time. It doesn't mean you will be 100% fine but you can ride the dips as they come.

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

#887

Post by rhacker »

sampo wrote: post #878
rhacker wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movingtojapan/comments/7g9n6e/music...

https://www.reddit.com/r/ImTheMainCharacter/comments/11aqayg...

Japanese people are NOTHING like Americans. Stop saying CA should build like Japan unless you're willing to kick out the loud assholes.

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

#888

Post by tonguetrainer »

p1necone wrote: post #881
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 do the same - for some reason I agonize over purchases of "permanent" things like clothing, video games etc while not blinking an eye at spending the same on "temporary" things like restaurant meals or cocktails.

You prioritize experiences over material goods. Nothing wrong with that.

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

#889

Post by whywhywhywhy »

rcarr wrote: post #687
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the UK it is very hard not to look at it this way. Unlike the US and other countries, Covid stimulus was very much aimed at maintaining the status quo: there were no flat amount universal basic income style checks handed out to everyone as in the US How does printing more money to give to everyone lower inflation?

I didn't say there was an either or did I? But the US approach is definitely preferable to giving the most amount of public money to the people who already have the most. Larger sums of money should have been given to the poor with it tapering off gradually as income levels increased. Instead it was given out in the complete opposite way, with people at the top getting the most and those at the bottom getting the lea…

Money was given to the top because the top controls the systems that allow the bottom to make money. Give to to the bottom they spend it, create nothing and now we all have nothing.

>The pandemic could have been the perfect opportunity for a soft debt jubilee to rebalance the system.

I don’t agree with either stimmy or the lockdown business handouts but I find it ridiculous people are using a world tragedy as some sort of crowbar to bring about their idea of some sort of require rebalancing. Not sure how those people even think how that could possibly play out beyond 3 months.

Starting to suspect some people feel the pandemic was the best thing to ever happen to them and are now upset it didn’t go further.

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

#890

Post by _Wintermute »

unity1001 wrote: post #884
_Wintermute wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The argument was about inflation, not food inflation alone. Even if only food prices are considered, one can say that its hard to trust UK's numbers in anything since the Tories that are ruling there have very funny ways of measuring things. Like how they recently have declared that homeowners were actually 'creating and also consuming rent services' and bumped the UK's GDP a fair bit. Even we gloss over it and trust…

You're either completely misunderstanding all of the figures you're reading, or you're arguing in bad faith. This has already been explained to you by others, this is my last message to you.

Either food inflation or general inflation, the UK has similar rates to the rest of Europe.

The Tories are not in charge of deciding the inflation rate in the UK, it's from the Office for National Statistics and all the financial lenders would be very quick to voice their disagreement if they thought otherwise. Suggesting that the values coming from the UK are fake is an extraordinary claim which you have no evidence of.

Germany has a general inflation rate of 8.7%, this is below the EU average. They are not driving it up.

Groceries were rationed because UK supermarkets refused to buy them at spot-prices. The UK had a shortage of peppers while Sweden etc had peppers at 10€/kg.

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