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

grocerygazette.co.uk

971–980 of 1001 posts

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

#971

Not related but The price of poultry has gone up significantly in the GTA, and a friend who works for the government informed me that there is an outbreak of bird flu in Ontario that's affecting poultry farms. Unfortunately, farmers can't talk about it due to ag-gag laws.

The Canada Food Inspection Agency publishes weekly estimates of the number of birds affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza infections. The numbers seem relatively high (any number above zero is concerning), but they have barely increased since January: Week ending 2023-01-18: 748,000 birds affected in Ontario, 7,051,000 in Canada [1] Week ending 2023-03-22: 749,000 birds affected in Ontario, 7,173,000 in Canad…

Thank you for sharing this. It's hard to stay objective when you're observing something happening around you in real time.

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

#973

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's tax our way out of a famine.

You’re an idiot, we should tax the wealthy, take half the money of people with £1bn+ (including the King) and pay off the national debt or force them to invest it in small businesses. We should not equate rent seeking and genuine innovation as the same things.

except people with 1b+ these days dpfjy have money - they have assets whose value will plummet when you ido that

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

#974
post #968

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's tax our way out of a famine.

This constant dichotomy in rhetoric is toxic to finding solutions. Surely, it's not an "either/or" scenario.

at the social level capacity matters a lot more than money but everyone wants to subsidise demand rather than facilitating supply

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

#975
post #968

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This constant dichotomy in rhetoric is toxic to finding solutions. Surely, it's not an "either/or" scenario.

at the social level capacity matters a lot more than money but everyone wants to subsidise demand rather than facilitating supply

All you did is restate the same dichotomy. Complex systems in the real-world are almost always too complex for such a simplistic take.

For example, just enabling additional supply can create second order effects in terms of perverse incentives to overproduce creating all sorts of knock-on effects. We can stimulate the supply of corn and end up with distorted food markets and high-fructose corn syrup as a near-ubiquitous food additive. All I’m saying is we need to be mindful of these systemic effects and creating a false dichotomy tends to turn a blind eye towards them.

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

#976

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, incidentally that very chemical is a major part of the recipe! My bad, English isn't my native language. I guess I meant additives?

> My bad Nah, it's just that the comment you're responding to is being insufferably pedantic. Your colloquial use of "chemicals" here is perfectly well understood.

While the colloquial is well understood and @jlengrand shouldn't feel bad about using the word "chemical" in this way, on a nerd forum like this I think it's valid pedantry — our bodies are massively complex chemical reactions, and half the stuff I've borne witness to people in my life complaining about are genuinely useful one way or another, for example by preserving the food or making it taste better.

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

#977
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, according to certain parts of the UK press those riots in France are a sign that their politics is far healthier than the awful state of politics here (looking at you, Guardian)...

On the contrary, those riots show that every important issue in France is hijacked by violent far left militants who don't want to debate but to bring "the system" down or just destroy as much property as they can get away with. That is not healthy. Riots on the pretext that the retirement age increases by 2 years to an age still below the EU average is not a sign of healthy politics.

People on the streets don't want a debate ?!? Macron put pension reform up without vote, and without debate. Shove it down people's throats

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

#978
post #167

As a person living in the UK, I have definitely noticed a considerable rise in unit prices. One of many examples is that a loaf of my favourite bread increased from £3 to £4 recently, which was a shocker. Toilet roll prices, as ever what the news loves to talk about, has exploded, increasing by around 70% since 2020 by my anecdotal observation. A sad thought I have about inflation is the fact that it is, wittingly or…

The conventional analysis is the other way around.

When inflation is entrenched, wages and prices rise at a similar rate so that workers aren't too terribly effected but the value of financial assets don't keep up.

Inflation is insidious in that respect in that it compounds like interest, you might think 5% a year is not that much, but over 50 years the value of your assets are less than 10% than what they were.

It is harmful to the financial services industry in that people decide it is not worth investing. In 1979 Merrill Lynch was practically a penny stock because they didn't have any products to sell that people found attractive.

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

#979
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> property prices and rental yields are extremely precarious I noticed you didn't say "declining" because that wouldn't be true.

Over what period? 1 Feb Guardian - house prices fall for fifth month in a row 1 March Guardian - house prices fall at fastest annual rate since 2012

> Over what period?

At least 2-3 years, anything less is too small a sample size. You could be highlighting a 10% decline after a 200% increase.

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

#980
post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The ag sector only needs to because they are being forced to by people who have no idea what it takes to run a farm.

The core problem is too much nitrogen absolutely destroying the native plants in Natura 2000 areas that always had very low nitrogen levels. You can be the most knowledgeable farmer in the world but that won't change the fact that intensive nitrogen (ammonia) emissions will annihilate the native plants in these protected areas, let alone outside them.
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