Are you fed up with stealthy increases in food prices?

rogue_element

Anybody noticed stealthy price rises in milk. By decimalisation. i.e. before it was 568ml i.e. one pint, now they put it in a 500ml bottle/carton and charge the same, that is, I believe something like 13.6% price increase, presuming the price remains the same.

C_Ronaldo

The price rises on bread, milk and eggs is down to the poor weather we had last year, the weather damaged the wheat crops which meant price of wheat went up and so did the feed used for chickens, cows etc and also meant the price of eggs and milkwent up and possibly cheese as well,

the supermarkets dont put the price up for no good reason

Nikiya

Thanks Globalds.... I had read those news. What I still don't understand is the reason. The increase is certainly not going to the producer.... is this yet another consequence of the traders adventures?

lilac_lady

Even Lidls's prices are rising, but not as steeply as the other supermarkets. We have to face the fact that food will get dearer and there's nothing we can do other than keep lookin at MSE for advice on making money go further.

globalds

Nikiya wrote: »

Thanks Globalds.... I had read those news. What I still don't understand is the reason. The increase is certainly not going to the producer.... is this yet another consequence of the traders adventures?

I do think there is a certain amount of roguishness on behalf of the supermarkets .
From an original opportunity to gain profit from efficiencies ,it soon became apparent that the benefit to the farmer of having his entire crop/stock purchased by one customer without the need of even taking it to market was marred by the realisation that if this single customer used the threat of not taking the product ...The farmer was left with very few viable alternatives ...And could be left literally giving it away, as farmers have done with milk.
I still think that comparatively our supermarkets are very well run and our prices are competitive .
This year will hopefully see lots of those fields that had been left idle being planted and some of the consequences of the European policy on Biofuels will be worked out ,easing the strain on supply of produce ..

Lets just hope we have good growing weather.

trisontana

If anyone saw the report on BBC news tonight you will have seen that these rise in food prices are a world-wide phenomena. There have been riots in various parts of the world because the price of basic food items, such as rice, wheat and cooking oil have increased by between 50% and 100%.

There are many reasons for this. The rise in the world's population, droughts in different parts of the world , increasing living standards in India and China and the change-over from growing food crops to those of bio-fuel.

So it's not a dastardly plot by the supermarkets to to increase their profits , they are just reflecting the price rises they have to pay. And just be thankful that we can buy reasonably priced food, unlike people in third-world countries.

uktim29

trisontana wrote: »

And just be thankful that we can buy reasonably priced food, unlike people in third-world countries.

Exactly. But in a country where food is about as cheap as you can get for the cost of living (they pay £3/£4 for a decent loaf of bread in the states) you end up getting this attitude when a price goes up.

Nikiya wrote: »

Isnt' there any protection for the consumer???

This shows the real greed is with the consumer.

Brooker_Dave

Nikiya wrote: »

That is more than a 30% increase in one case and more than a 50% in the other! Isnt' there any protection for the consumer???

Worldwide food prices are rising very quickly.

Apparantly in Bangladesh rice has doubled in price in the last year or so.

Do you moan when prices fall?

MummyHol

The way i see it is that the increase in cost of living isn't reflected in pay rises. The vast majority of employers give a really basic 2.5% payrise every year, which doesn't even cover rising costs of food, let alone fuel bills, petrol prices, etc etc! Of course we're going to compain about our food bills increasing when bread goes up 9p!!!

Also, i thought that when the leading supermarkets were caught 'price locking' on basic items (milk, bread, etc) none of the farmers were getting any more money, the supermarkets were just making a bigger profit and not passing it along. Thats what i understand happened anyway (obviously i might be wrong- after all i wasn't there, haha)

trisontana

MummyHol wrote: »

The way i see it is that the increase in cost of living isn't reflected in pay rises. The vast majority of employers give a really basic 2.5% payrise every year, which doesn't even cover rising costs of food, let alone fuel bills, petrol prices, etc etc! Of course we're going to compain about our food bills increasing when bread goes up 9p!!!

There will always be a delay between the rise in prices (which effects the cost-of-living index) and the rise in wages. This is because wage rates are probably fixed once a year, and if they are calculated when the index was lower than you will have to wait a year before things catch up. Either that or you have to use the system we had for a short time in the 1970's when wage rates were calculated every month because of double-digit inflation.