The Financial Times says it’s worth paying attention to food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe.
She tweeted last week about the shrinking value range and big price rises on the cheapest products in her local store. One response was that the poorest and most vulnerable in society are suffering higher inflation — although Office for National Statistics data suggests that inflation is being experienced at similar, high levels across income brackets.
But poorer households, which spend a bigger share of income on non-discretionary items such as food and energy, are obviously less able to absorb rising grocery prices.
The looming jump in the energy price cap could triple the number of English households spending more than a tenth of their budget on fuel bills to 27 per cent of the total, according to the Resolution Foundation.
Resolution suspects that the price and availability of different supermarket value ranges aren’t well captured in official inflation numbers. A New Statesman tool shows in some areas, like fruit and veg, cheaper products have risen more in price than the median but in other staples that isn’t the case.
Monroe plans an index to track this, and cited examples from her local Asda, such as pasta, which has risen from 29p a year ago to 70p.
