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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

#501

Post by dangwhy »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #85
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/...

There is something called price elasticity of demand, which is how much demand reacts to changes in price. Here we're discussing food ... People have to eat so demand for food, at least staples, does not change much when prices rise as long as people can afford to pay (and by and large currently they can). It should also be noted that in developed countries the price of food has collapsed as a proportion of people's…

> 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.

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

#502

Post by gunshai »

comte7092 wrote: post #472
Jimmc414 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's (inflation) been the number 1 priority for central banks since the early 90s. I might believe this if M2 hadn't increased 4x since 2000 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

The money supply gets brought up in every single discussion around inflation on this forum, and it’s obviously relevant. However inflation!= growth in the money supply. A lot of the reasoning behind that growth was because inflation was persistently below the 2% target for the entire period up until 2021. That’s two decades of stubbornly low inflation, despite the feds best efforts in juicing the money supply. It’s m…

What is consistently lost in the M2 supply talking point is the demand aspect of currency.

One of the reasons why the M2 supply increasing wouldn't directly correlate to inflation has to do with global demand to hold the asset in reserve.

So the argument I don't think is bad, just misguided in the sense that once the global demand for currency reserve is saturated the party is over for increase in supply with out a very direct affect on inflation.

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

#503

Post by Tade0 »

purpleturtle22 wrote: post #380
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

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 grew up lower middle-class and for a long time my tech salary kept my mind off such things, which was nice. I wanted to forget about that whole situation.

But I recently stopped buying in corner shops because their prices are usually close to 50% higher than in large supermarkets and with food inflation it makes a difference in my budget.

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

#504

Post by prottog »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #465
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…

The fix is to produce more stuff. It's that simple. It might not be easy though. It would require us to focus on production, remove barriers, streamline regulations, encourage and actively celebrate production. It seems these days we're ambivalent toward the production of stuff, or even antagonistic to it in many cases. So we have less stuff. Combine this with giving people more money and you get inflation.

> It seems these days we're ambivalent toward the production of stuff, or even antagonistic to it in many cases.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Wealthy Western nations have been wealthy for so long that people know how to cut up the pie in different sizes more so than they know how to bake more.

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

#505

Post by cs702 »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #414
cs702 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In an inflationary economy, the winners are rich who have valuable assets whose value skyrocket - think real estate, businesses, etc. Actually, it's the opposite that is happening, because central banks have aggressively raised interest rates to bring inflation under control. When rates rise, the net present value of every long-term cash-earning asset declines, and those individuals and businesses (including banks)…

Isn't the problem with raising interest rates that the rich with savings have assets that improve and the poor with debts have loans that get worse?

> have assets that improve

The opposite is happening:

Asset values are declining.

Stocks, bonds, property, etc. -- all declining in value.

That's the reality.

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

#506

Post by 908B64B197 »

jll29 wrote: post #337
WalterBright wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Demand for food is inelastic I doubt it. I've read that Americans throw away 40% of their food. Obesity rates suggest people eat far more than they need to. And there are major choices in what to eat - cheap vs expensive calories.

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.

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

#507

Post by G3rn0ti »

bakugo wrote: post #354
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…

This comment is bizarre. Corporations taking advantage of the current economic climate to make a profit is a conspiracy now? Most of the large corporations responsible for selling these supposedly "inflated" goods are posting record profits with no shame, and here you are covering your eyes and ears to defend them.

Inflation means price increases across all actors in an economy. Large corporations also have to pay higher production costs now. So all these „profits“ are eaten up by the price increases those corporations see, too. I don’t think you have a valid understanding of what a „profit“ really is…

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

#508

Post by unity1001 »

_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 supply anymore and it has to wait for what remains for export.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/28/british-supermarkets-are-rat...

There isnt such a situation like rationing vegetables anywhere else in Europe.

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

#509

Post by ch4s3 »

Wildgoose wrote: post #374
ch4s3 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are nominal profits, everyone is trying to take "an extra cut" to stay ahead of inflation. Grocery has razor thin margins to begin with and the usual direction of prices is downward. Inflation will absolutely put a grocer out of business if they can't stay ahead of rising prices.

Wholesale margins are razor thin, but retail ones are relatively fat. (I work in Wholesale/Retail software).

After tax profit margins for grocery retailers in the US range from 1-3%, some places like Whole Foods approach 5%. Gross margins are higher, but net margins are what determine whether or not you go out of business.

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

#510

Post by uptownfunk »

The nasty move is when they reduce the weight of the package but keep the price the same. Meanwhile everyone on PPP loan cash out built their own custom made mansion. And we’re more concerned with paying out millions in reparations. The country deserves to fail if this is how we prioritize our concerns
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