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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

#921

Post by dangwhy »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #810
dangwhy wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have to eat People in west vastly overestimate how much they have to eat. We wouldn't have health epidemic if people can just stop eating all the time.

This is complete nonsense. Yes, people overeat, but it only takes a small surplus of calories to put on weight.

you really think americans are eating 'small surplus' ?

Last year that number was 3600 ( fda recommendation is 2000, for reference )

imagine what will happen to food prices if americans cut their consumption by half.

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

#922

Post by ulfw »

symlinkk wrote: post #428
astockwell wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is OK, as long as you recognize your position of extreme privilege there.

I don’t think it’s “extreme privilege” to not notice a price increase of maybe $3? I could see it if you’re living in extreme poverty but anyone middle class and above shouldn’t waste mental energy on things like that

When a coffee costs $7 instead of $4, even if I could "afford it" is something any normal human being notices. Rich or poor. Being able to afford such change is a different story.

Do you not even look at your phone/credit card when you tap? Do you really just randomly pay things?

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

#923

Post by BirdieNZ »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #900
taurath wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a supply and there's demand. Prices will continue to increase as long as people demand the goods and are willing to pay the price.

How much are you willing to pay for the basic necessities of life, life land, shelter, food, water?

If the providers of those necessities possess a monopoly, either natural or through regulatory capture, humans will pay whatever they have to get those necessities. It is important for social prosperity to prevent extracting excess profits through monopolisation, either by destroying the monopoly or by taxing it and reducing other taxes on the individuals.

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

#924

Post by GeekyBear »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #915
GeekyBear wrote: post #909

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I took up cooking from scratch as a hobby a couple of decades ago. I highly recommend it. After a bit of a learning curve, it's cheaper, tastier. and better for you than highly processed foodlike substances.

I have learnt to unpack a few things here. Firstly cooking from scratch is absolutely a life skill and nominally cheaper. But food is also a class issue. Those with time to spare (ie rich) can indulge in for example "stuffing a mushroom" - Shirley Conran famously recanted twenty years of writing cookery lifestyle books exhorting women to become corden bleu cooks by saying life was to short to stuff a mushroom - and t…

> Those with time to spare... how many blog posts extoll boiled peas

I recommend you start with an instant pot. You can go from dried legumes to the table in very little time.

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

#925

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#926

Post by temprose »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #894
FpUser wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was buying a piece of tenderloin in Costco once a week. In a short time the average price went from about $150 to $200. I could still afford it but something in me cringe so I stopped buying it. That is in Canada

Ground beef prices at Costco went up a boat load as well. Costco only sells things at most a 2% markup so Costco prices are a pretty good metric for inflation.

I love the fact that I can still get 2 dozen eggs for $6 at Costco, meanwhile it's like at least $5 a dozen anywhere else in NYC.

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

#927

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #696
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.

Profits have never been higher means nothing if dollars have never been lower. What are profits like adjusted for inflation?

the dollars are lower as a result of their actions increasing profits

they only need to increase prices to deal with the increase in costs, and profits represent an increase above and beyond that necessary amount, which in economic terms is "not cool, dude"

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

#928

Post by Kailhus »

nyerp wrote: post #213
clnq wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 inflating. That is a false binary. You can still buy flour (or naan or pita), cheese and tomato sauce instead of pre-made pizzas, sacrificing your time against rising food costs. You can buy lentils instead of steak, sacrificing your preferences against rising…

Ok so as an another commenter mentionned: 1. Spare time to cook food from scratch is a class thing. Most peeps have to work stupid hours. 2. To go to a warehouse and buy wholesale, you need #1 and make sure your petrol cost offset the savings which imho is absolutely unreasonable.

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

#929

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

legitster wrote: post #843
boc wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"firms reacting normally" according to who?

I'd expect decent firms to not try to gouge customers who are already hurting at the time when they most are, but maybe "normal" means "sociopathic" in the context of amoral unrestricted capitalism

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

#930

Post by Kailhus »

NovaDudely wrote: post #886
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 some…

Do you ‘need’ a house though?
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