Food costs on the up April 23rd, 2008

Mysupermarket.co.uk has compared the cost of a basket of essential food items such as bread and milk and found that the price is 15% higher than this time last year. Significant increases were on bread which is up 20% and eggs which has seen a rise of over 50%.

The increases are apparent in all the major stores - Tesco, Asda and Saainsbury’s, so it isn’t possible to shop around to keep the costs down. The impact is to send a greater proportion of the population into ‘food poverty’ which is defined as ‘greater than 10% of income being spent on food’.  Pensioners are the hardest hit as their income has not kept pace with the rising costs.