Food price warning for consumers

Last Modified: 06 Sep 2008
Source: PA News

Food prices will remain high over the long term in Britain and around the world, the Prime Minister's chief scientific adviser warned.

Professor John Beddington said that while there may be a slight reduction in prices over the next few years, he predicted that it would not be enough to bring supermarket bills down to the levels of a few years ago.

His warning comes as experts warn the era of falling food prices is over and households will have to get used to spending more of their budget at the checkout.

A typical trolley of food has risen in price by 8.3% since the beginning of the year, according to new figures.

The price of meat and fish was up 22.9% since January, while the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables was up 14.7%, a study for the BBC by retail analysts Verdict Research found.

"In the next two or three years I think there may well be some decline in food prices - not dramatic and I don't think to anything like the sort of level we saw four or five years ago," Prof Beddington told BBC1's 10 O'Clock News.

"So I think we are going to have to expect to have - and this is throughout the world and not just in the UK - higher food prices.

"The world population is increasing by approximately six million people a month. That's more than the size of the Great Britain population in a year. That's the background and there's absolutely no reason to believe that will slow down. It may indeed be slightly higher than that."

The survey comes after high street data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) released on Wednesday showed the rocketing rate of food inflation slowed markedly last month.

The BRC said food inflation posted its lowest monthly rise for five months to hit 10% in August. The month-on-month rise was 0.3%, down from 1.9% in July and the lowest since March's no-change reading.But the high cost of food is far exceeding the official rate of inflation, with the Consumer Prices Index, which includes shop goods, energy and fuel costs, at 4.4%.

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