Cost of living crisis: supermarkets hiking food prices by up to 145%

New Which? research highlights the rocketing cost of healthy foods.

Most of us have noticed sharp increases in the cost of our food shopping over the last year or so.

But a new investigation by the consumer champions at Which? has highlighted just how dramatic the price hikes have been on individual items, with certain household staples more than doubling in cost over the last year.

Massive price increases

Which? is running a monthly food price inflation tracker, analysing the prices of more than 26,000 grocery items and how they have changed in the three months to September 2023, compared with the same period a year ago.

The latest edition of the research looks specifically at foods that help with a balanced diet ‒ things like oats, meat, yoghurt, fruit and vegetables ‒ having been concerned that the hikes seen on certain foods make it even harder for shoppers to eat healthily.

And while it’s not surprising that prices have increased virtually across the board, it’s the scale of the price hikes that is pretty shocking.

At Tesco for example, a 1.5kg pack of porridge oats has grown from £1.23 on average in the three months to the end of September 2022 to £3 over the same period this year.

That’s a jump of an eye-watering 145%.

Meanwhile, at Asda, natural yoghurt rose from £1 to £1.78, a 78% hike.

Even looking beyond the healthiest foods alone, the scale of the price increases on other sorts of foods is also remarkable.

Here are the food groups which have seen the highest annual inflation over the last year:

As you can see, that’s an awful lot of food types which have grown in price by at least 10% over the last year, hitting us hard in the wallet.

And given those are just averages, there will be some particularly shocking individual examples, such as that price hike on oats at Tesco or the yoghurt at Asda.

Paying more for own-label items

As part of the study, Which? tracks typical price rises across both branded and own-label products.

And it is the own-label budget items that have been subjected to the biggest price jumps, up by 21.3% in the quarter to September compared with the same time in 2022.

By contrast, prices for supermarket own-brand standard items rose by 11%, while branded goods and premium own-brand ranges grew by 10.2% and 8.2% respectively.

The supermarkets where prices are rising fastest

One tactic shoppers may employ when looking to save money on supermarket shopping is switching supermarkets.

After all, some are renowned for being kinder on household budgets than others.

However, the Which? tracker shows that those deep discounters are hiking prices swiftly, albeit not quite as quickly as Sainsbury’s.

Here is how they compare on average price inflation over the last year:

The pain of food price hikes

We will all have felt the impact of food price rises at the till in recent months, but thankfully food price inflation appears to have peaked.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest food price inflation is now 12.2%, compared with the high of 19.2% back in March, which was the highest rate seen in more than 45 years.

Of course, this means food prices are still rising, just at a slower pace than before.

Given these price hikes, and the other ways in which our finances are being stretched, it’s more crucial than ever to keep on top of what you are spending on your food shopping and whether money could be saved by moving to a rival, or simply by changing the brands you buy.