Tempo of meals inflation is slowing down – however costs nonetheless surged 15% within the yr to June

Food inflation within the UK has continued to sluggish from April’s record-breaking rise – however continues to be up practically 15% yr on yr, new retail figures present.

It means costs are nonetheless rising, simply at a slower tempo than beforehand.

There was a 14.6% enhance in meals costs within the yr as much as June, analysis from the British Retail Consortium and retail analysts NielsenIQ confirmed – barely down from 15.4% recorded in May.

Overall store costs rose 8.4% over the yr to June, a slowdown from the 9% recorded within the yr as much as May.

Last month’s figures had been the second-fastest annual enhance ever measured by the commerce organisation for UK retailers, second only to April this year.

The slowed tempo was due to retailers slicing the worth of contemporary produce together with milk, cheese and eggs, BRC chief government Helen Dickson mentioned.

“If the current situation continues, food inflation should drop to single digits later this year,” she mentioned.

The concept of meals inflation peaking was raised once more by the pinnacle of retailer and enterprise perception at NielsenIQ, Mike Watkins.

“If global supply chain costs continue to fall, we may now be past the peak of price increases,” he mentioned.

Ms Dickson had mentioned final month there was motive to consider meals inflation “might be peaking”.

“However, with most households needing to save money, purchasing behaviour for the rest of this year is still likely to shift towards essential needs with discretionary consumption being deprioritised or delayed,” Mr Watkins added.

The news comes forward of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s assembly with regulators to see what they’re doing concerning the mounting payments prospects are dealing with – and grocery store bosses showing earlier than the Business and Trade Committee.

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When will food prices start to fall?

On Wednesday, Mr Hunt is meeting the Competitions and Markets Authority – in addition to Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom – to ask how they’re addressing inflationary pressures being felt by customers.

The CMA beforehand introduced it was launching an investigation in to whether people are paying higher grocery and fuel prices than they need to be.

Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda will face questions on meals and gasoline inflation from committee members – as will the Groceries Code Adjudicator, an unbiased statutory physique that regulates the connection between supermarkets and their direct suppliers.

Food inflation has been a a number of of the speed of typical, client value index inflation.

According to the Office for National Statistics, it stood at 18.3% in May – down from 19.1% in April and 19.2% within the yr to March.

As an power reliant sector, meals sector costs have been closely impacted by the increase in energy bills that skyrocketed after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Increasing labour prices additionally helped push meals manufacturing costs up as unemployment stayed under 4%.