Family food shop up '£15 a week'

[T_i_B]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7362676.stm

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.

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.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown met top-level food industry representatives and experts on Tuesday to consider ways to tackle the effects of international food price rises, which are threatening to drive an extra 100 million people worldwide into poverty. The increases have been driven by a number of supply problems, mainly caused by bad weather and the increase in the use of land to grow crops for biofuel.

[Morris Onions]

1. but we are told that inflation (and thus pay increases) is low...

that is if you only buy 42 inch plasma tellies and plastic crap imported from China.

If you want food, fuel, and other necessities you're stuffed.

[fedsron2us]

2. It is really starting starting to smell like the 1970s

Not long until the run on toilet rolls starts.

[Nihil]

3. That'll be the cheap tins of beans ...

... not to mention the recent trend towards vegetarianism ...
:evilgrin:

[Morris Onions]

4. really, I'd thought it was the...

discontent.

[fedsron2us]

6. If it is like the 1970s then beans wont stay cheap for long

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. Stagflation

Monetarism was hailed as a "cure" for stagflation by the Right. Of course it was bullshit. It's just the same old capitalist boom and bust.

[Mark Baker]

7. £100 a week sounds like a lot

I spend less than £25 a week for myself, and I buy lots of expensive stuff, I could easily spend less by not buying premium stuff, buying less snacks etc. (The only "basics" thing I buy is butter, because it comes in greaseproof so I can soften it in the microwave - all the more expensive butters come in foil).

So I'd expect an average family of two adults and two children to be paying rather less than £100 a week.

(Of course, this is irrelevant to the point of the article, which is really about a 15% rise. If anything I suspect the less people spend the higher the percentage rise they'll see, since it's mainly the staples which are rising fast)

[Nihil]

8. Unless you are particularly lucky, your expectations are over-optimistic

> So I'd expect an average family of two adults and two children to be paying rather
> less than £100 a week.

We have a family of two parents and three children and it costs a damn sight more
than £100 per week. Admittedly, this works out at approximately four adults in terms
of meals but, even so, the idea of hitting <£100 a week is fairly laughable.

And yes, we are finding the price of bread (in particular) to be rising rapidly ...
something we definitely notice as all of us have sandwiches for lunch ...