Food inflation

[Guest]

Butter has gone from £1 to £1.60 in a few months. Milk has gone up by 10% too. What's causing this?

Will EU let us produce dairy and meat in the UK any cheaper?

[nome]

You're quite wrong about those price rises.

 

Inflation is only running at around 3%

 

I know this because the government said so.

[adamLancs]

45 minutes ago, nome said:

You're quite wrong about those price rises.

 

Inflation is only running at around 3%

 

I know this because the government said so.

+1 Any other conclusion would require us to think for ourselves.

[winkie]

.......milk producers like the increased prices, they get more for the milk they produce, less milk being produced, many small dairy farmers no longer producing milk because of previous low price of milk..... consumption of butter has been increasing here and in Europe, health news says butter is not bad for you and tastes better, but will decrease if price rises any higher due to high cost to the consumer... can now be exported it for a good price so that will reduce supply further here if production does not increase....

Remember the butter mountains of the past?

[onlooker]

16 minutes ago, winkie said:

.......milk producers like the increased prices, they get more for the milk they produce, less milk being produced, many small dairy farmers no longer producing milk because of previous low price of milk..... consumption of butter has been increasing here and in Europe, health news says butter is not bad for you and tastes better, but will decrease if price rises any higher due to high cost to the consumer... can now be exported it for a good price so that will reduce supply further here if production does not increase....

Remember the butter mountains of the past?

AIUI, the EU abolished the quota/price support system a couple of years back, so every EU country then jacked up their output, which caused prices to plunge. As a result many smaller producers went bust or cut back, so there is now a shortage. As you say World demand is up.

Prices just a year or two ago were artificially low and unsustainable. So the current high prices don't really count as inflation, in the accepted sense.

A couple more years should see some balance return. I believe the UK should be self sufficient in dairy. What else can be done with fields in a cold wet climate, except graze cows.

[winkie]

Linked in with this, looking at fields of grass to feed cattle and sheep, crops grown to feed cattle and sheep a  few goats......fields of rapeseed to feed animals and produce biofuels.......very many fields not doing any of these things, just for hay or silage.........is it me but when  travelling in the countryside see very little food being grown for humans to eat just some wheat sometimes.

[Wurzel Of Highbridge]

1 hour ago, Grab_Some_Popcorn said:

Butter has gone from £1 to £1.60 in a few months. Milk has gone up by 10% too. What's causing this?

Will EU let us produce dairy and meat in the UK any cheaper?

You must be shopping in Tesco, they always put up their prices at the end of November by cutting special offers.

No difference in Lidl. Good 29p veg this week, £2.39 for a 'small' chicken which is rather big IMO. Pineapples cheap at the moment.

Not seeing food inflation myself shopping in Lidl/Aldi.

When shopping at Tesco when they send me the £7 off when you spend £50. I can see their prices are 20% to 30% more for most basic items.
Farm foods have gotten expensive.
Asda & Morrisons are still reasonable for some items.

[durhamborn]

Tesco have all the veg on for 29p including bags of potatoes,Sprouts,carrots,cauliflower and parsnips.Il get 6 months supply for about £25,il blanch them and freeze them.Blanche,dip in iced water,freeze.Last year they cut to 19p and there is time for that yet.

I got £50 worth last friday of chicken breasts,pork chops,mince etc for £12.00 in Tesco including a free range chicken that had been £9.80 for £1.50 (xmas lunch along with a £12 joint of beef for £1.75) on the reductions and the big new co-op on a new "executive estate" they have build near me is a gold mine.10.30am you can pick up some quality food at 80% off and you never see anyone there or walking about,they must be all at work and run in at 6pm to grab the food for tea at full price.

Its very very easy in this country to eat high quality,healthy food for a couple for around £35 a week if you have time.

As for milk going to £1.09 they have all copied,but its still 99p in Iceland and Lidl.Butter is a problem,i usually buy it reduced for 10p and freeze it (you get a lot every now and again for some reason),but im down to my last one.I might have to buy the double cream i always see reduced for 10p and make my own butter,very easy to make with a good quality food processor

[winkie]

Can buy at the moment huge bag of carrots for little, add a couple of potatoes an onion, peel and chop, saute in BUTTER and cook till tender with good a quality vegetable stock, such as marigold stock, one tub lasts ...... then cook two ground teaspoons of corriander in a little BUTTER till fragrant add to soup, season......Blitz the lot, serve.....can add a little heat such as a few drops of pepper or chilli sauce as desired.....tasty cheap and good for you.

[Funn3r]

I never understand this business about coriander - it is a leafy plant how do you do teaspoons?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, durhamborn said:

.I got £50 worth last friday of chicken breasts,pork chops,mince etc for £12.00 in Tesco in

Last few times I've been the food is piled up ready to be reduced ... But not yet stickered. Grrrrr

[winkie]

10 minutes ago, Funn3r said:

I never understand this business about coriander - it is a leafy plant how do you do teaspoons?

Fresh corriander is the herb green leaves.....use that if have it, freezes well...... dried corriander is the dried seeds of the corriander plant, it can be bought whole seeds you can grind yourself or already ground as a spice in a spice jar.

[winkie]

3 minutes ago, Grab_Some_Popcorn said:

Last few times I've been the food is piled up ready to be reduced ... But not yet stickered. Grrrrr

Go and find someone they will reduce while you wait.....reducing to sell is better than throwing good edible food away.

[longgone]

18x magners 

36 x kronenbourg

2x prosecco

10x guinness.

£33.60 

 

my food shopping done for the week. 

[kzb]

2 hours ago, winkie said:

Go and find someone they will reduce while you wait.....reducing to sell is better than throwing good edible food away.

Hmmm is this true ?   Better to discard the food and make you come back the day after to pay full price surely?

I think what is happening now is food banks.  They can't feed leftovers to pigs anymore, so now we have food banks.  Only selected persons are allowed to access food banks -for the most part people who would not be buying stuff in Tesco anyhow.  So it doesn't affect their market.

I think about 20% of food is leftover in supermarkets, if they marked it all down to people like us their profits would collapse.   As soon as too many people do it they'll stop it.

[kzb]

5 hours ago, AnneD said:

Aldi butter £1.40.  Think I read somewhere on this site that dairy increases are due to EU shrinking quota requirements and they cut back too much due to not anticipating bad crops/weather going forward.  

But it used to be about 89p from memory.  Anyhow, I don't like that value range Aldi butter -it's kind of pasty.

Like others have said, the story is that dairy farmers have been driven out of business by the large supermarkets and other factors. 

Then it was announced that butter is probably better for you than hydrogenated oils.  The Chinese are getting richer and want butter.  World demand is up just at a time production declined.

You can get 500g block of Asda own brand butter for £2.79, which works out slightly cheaper than Aldi, with the bonus it is actually edible.

[scottbeard]

8 hours ago, nome said:

You're quite wrong about those price rises.

Inflation is only running at around 3%

I know this because the government said so.

Sigh, here we go again.

You can't just pick a single price increase on a single product and cite that as "proof" that the inflation indices are unrepresentative.  It's as daft as saying "the government tries to pretend the average age in the UK is 40 - but it can't be: my granddad is 87!"

It is a glaring omission from the RPI and CPI that house prices aren't included - that's a huge issue that people should care about.  Butter is obviously in the index and that increase in price will be captured, alongside all the other rises and falls.

[winkie]

2 hours ago, kzb said:

Hmmm is this true ?   Better to discard the food and make you come back the day after to pay full price surely?

I think what is happening now is food banks.  They can't feed leftovers to pigs anymore, so now we have food banks.  Only selected persons are allowed to access food banks -for the most part people who would not be buying stuff in Tesco anyhow.  So it doesn't affect their market.

I think about 20% of food is leftover in supermarkets, if they marked it all down to people like us their profits would collapse.   As soon as too many people do it they'll stop it.

Unfortunately generally food banks do not accept perishable foods.....food waste is not only by the food shops, it is the producers and of course the consumers who never get round to consume it.

[kzb]

1 hour ago, winkie said:

Unfortunately generally food banks do not accept perishable foods.....food waste is not only by the food shops, it is the producers and of course the consumers who never get round to consume it.

Are they giving the perishable food to homeless shelters and the like?  I am sure I've seen this on TV.

Also, I'd accounted for the consumer waste, I seem to remember a figure of 20% wastage by the producers/retailers, but it could be wrong.  Overall wastage (including consumers) is about 30% ? 

[MattW]

4 hours ago, longgone said:

18x magners 

36 x kronenbourg

2x prosecco

10x guinness.

£33.60 

 

my food shopping done for the week. 

£33.60. Getting weassuring rankered - priceless. Merry Christmas!

A bit unscientific but my weekly grocery shop has gone up around £10-14  in the past 12 years. And choccy bars are getting smaller: 4 pack of Cadbury's Double Decker are almost like fun sized bars. Fun size? My bottom.

[winkie]

13 minutes ago, kzb said:

Are they giving the perishable food to homeless shelters and the like?  I am sure I've seen this on TV.

Also, I'd accounted for the consumer waste, I seem to remember a figure of 20% wastage by the producers/retailers, but it could be wrong.  Overall wastage (including consumers) is about 30% ? 

Yes about 30% of all food is wasted......this should help to prevent waste and on the food inflation front.

https://news.sky.com/story/co-op-sells-food-past-its-best-before-date-for-10p-to-cut-waste-11156071

[Dogtanian]

Some food is definitely sabotaged, i.e. packets opened and spilt into bins in order to deter scavengers etc.  Definitely makes more business sense to not reduce food too much as people then more likely to pay full price.

A lot of the supermarkets I visit have pointless reduced sections, as in miniscule reductions whereas I know other places that unfortunately I don't frequent have amazing 90% reductions.  Apparently it can get quite heated with these reductions.... Elbows and all.  

[Bricks n' mortar]

25 minutes ago, Dogtanian said:

A lot of the supermarkets I visit have pointless reduced sections, as in miniscule reductions

I've worked for 4 supermarkets.  Been involved with the reduction in 3 of them. 
The stores are run by managers.  They get brownie points for maximising profit - cash-money brownie points if they do it well.  So, they want to see all that short-dated stuff out the door, with as little reducing as they can.  probably start with 10% off around 24 hours before it's done.  If you've the staff, then move to 25% off with 8 hours to go.  50% off with 4 hours to go.  And whatever it takes to sell it in the last couple hours.
But that's 4 lots of re-pricing.  And there's shelves to fill, tills to staff, trolleys to move and all the other stuff.  You want to find a store that's short on staff - where the mid-day reductions don't happen, and there's a panic a few hours before closing and large amounts get reduced to whatever it takes. 
Right now.  The run up to Christmas - is when the staff are busy.  It's compounded by the fresh stock levels and sales being much higher than they usually are, and many fresh items they don't even sell during the rest of the year, so have poor data to base their orders on.

Try wandering in 3 hours before closing. - If no good, try 2 hours, or 4 hours. 

[Dogtanian]

@Bricks n' mortar thanks for the info.  In my limited experience it seems to be the bigger stores that reduce and possibly in more disadvantaged areas.  Tbh the stores I go to are in the city and whilst some are larger than others the reductions are not great.  One bug bear was the Sainsbury's nearby that used to be my main goto... I'd often end up there quite close to leaving and all the fresh bread would invariably be taken off the shelves and be sitting in the bakery staff bit.  Not sure if I ever got an answer to why, but pretty annoying especially as often wanted reduced or not.  The slightly larger Sainsbury's in another part of town would often have fresh loaves reduced by 30% from quite early on in the evening.

Definitely what you say about Christmas makes sense.  Definitely mega bargains galore everywhere come Christmas Eve which probably not that surprising.

[Bricks n' mortar]

I do see things are changing.   My local co-op is doing similar with its bread.  I'm wondering if they give it to a foodbank.  Can't think why else they'd remove it from sale before closing time.