Latest features Rising prices- the chef's perspective

How it's affecting the man on the street

Date Published:

23/06/2008

As the price of wheat and grain continue to rise and consumers struggle to stretch their food budgets 4Food asks some of Britain's best chefs how they are feeling the pinch

If we take, for example, that a fillet of beef in January was costing me £19 a kilo it is now costing me in June £26 a kilo. So that is a huge increase and as yet I haven't put my prices up to sale for the customers so I've swallowed that increase - and it is painful. The next increase will be a big one. It is something that as restaurateurs we are worried about and we have to pass this on. And it's something that we have to live with, I'm afraid. The price of oil and the price of feed for animals, for example, have gone up – it is a worrying time.

I can't be hypocritical about this. I'm in that group of people that don't worry particularly about the cost of food. I grow a lot of my own food, I raise a lot of my own meat, I don't worry about the price of my family’s food bill, but many, many families do worry about that.

My argument has always been that people should buy more locally; it isn't always cheaper but it certainly isn't always more expensive – people spend too much of their food budget on meat and therefore meat feels disproportionately expensive. Meat should be a luxury item in everyone's shopping basket, not basically a fodder staple.

One of the problems we have as a culture, is we've always expected food to be cheap, expected food to be an area where we can save money. And we've literally spent smaller percentages of our income on food in the UK than any other country in Europe. You've got to ask yourself, what are your priorities? Personally I would rather have a second hand car and eat well then a new car and try and save money on food.

Suppliers are definitely feeling the pinch. The problem for them is they get stuffed by a lot of the restaurants when they go down the tubes so they're putting their prices up to cover possible risk later. The prices have gone through the roof recently. Everything, eggs, butter, any flour product and some unnecessary things have gone up. Why should a bag of shallots cost £45? There's no grain, no feed to give onions. People are stitching you up because they read about prices going up and they're taking advantage of that.

The era of cheap food is over. People have got to accept that they have to pay a bit more. Around the Second World War people were spending 30 per cent of their income on food now it's down to 12 per cent; people say food is too expensive but they want their second car and their fourth telly.

If you've got a packet of tomatoes and one is rotten, throw the rotten one away but don't throw the whole packet. Go into the supermarket on a Monday morning and look at all the half price deals. You mustn't worry about sell by dates, maybe for shellfish and poultry, but as long as it looks OK and smells OK, it's going to taste OK. People panic about sell by dates - even yoghurt and milk last longer than people think. It's a case of making use of those special offers.

To find out more about the issue of food prices and it's effect on shoppers and producers watch Dispatches: the truth about food prices, tonight at 8pm on Channel 4