View Single Post
Old 23rd April 2008, 13:58   #20 (permalink)
Marching
Active Admin
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne
Posts: 27,228


Steep increases in food costs have added £15 to a weekly supermarket shop for a family of four in the UK, new research suggests.

Comparison website MySupermarket.co.uk says a basket of 24 staple items including tea bags, milk and eggs costs 15% more than it did 12 months ago.

The findings are based on its price comparisons of certain everyday items at Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda.

A white loaf was up more than 20%, from 54p to 65p, at Tesco and Sainsbury's.

At all three supermarkets, the price of a dozen medium free-range eggs was up almost 50% to £2.58, from £1.75 a year earlier.

A packet of fusilli pasta has nearly doubled, from 37p to 67p, as has the cost of butter, to 94p, from 58p.

Other items in the basket of staple goods were milk, minced beef, peas, pasta sauce, jam, corn flakes and rice.

The price of a number of fruit and vegetables bucked the trend. They were either static or had fallen from this time last April.

But this is likely to offer little comfort to the government, which has been pushing for Britons to be healthier as the figures show an average 15% increase in the overall cost of this basket of food in the last year.

This means that families spending £100 a week on average will be spending £780 a year more at a time when cash-strapped customers are also under increasing financial pressure from higher mortgage costs, petrol and energy prices.
Marching is offline   Reply With Quote