UK food inflation hit 11-month high in April, industry data shows

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UK food inflation has hit an 11-month high as staples such as bread, meat and fish become more expensive at a time of higher costs for retailers, industry data showed on Tuesday.

Food prices rose at an annual rate of 2.6 per cent in April, up from 2.4 per cent in March and the fastest pace since May last year, according to the British Retail Consortium.

The trade body’s figures come ahead of official inflation data for April on May 21. Both data series reported a pick-up in food price growth at the start of this year compared with most of 2024, reflecting higher wholesale food prices and stronger domestic price pressures.

BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said prices of everyday essentials, including bread, meat and fish, all increased between March and April — a period when retailers faced “a mountain of new employment costs” as employer national insurance contributions and the minimum wage both rose.

“The days of shop price deflation look numbered as food inflation rose to its highest in 11 months, and non-food deflation eased significantly,” she added.

Overall shop prices were down 0.1 per cent in April compared with the same month last year, the smallest contraction since summer 2024, when prices stopped rising, according to BRC.

Since chancellor Rachel Reeves used her autumn Budget to set out higher taxes on employers, which took effect this month, numerous business surveys have pointed to companies planning to cut headcount and raise prices as offsetting measures.

Last month, the Bank of England said food inflation had risen more than expected at the start of the year. Alongside external shocks, “it was possible that domestic factors, such as labour costs”, drove the increase, the central bank added.

Food inflation is well below the double-digit rate reached in 2023, when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine led many commodities to surge in price. But the rise in April will still hit poorest households hardest, since they spend a larger share of their income on essentials.

Non-food products were still in deflation, dropping in price by 1.4 per cent — a milder contraction than the 1.9 per cent registered in March and the smallest decline in nine months.

But fresh food inflation increased to 1.8 per cent in April compared with the year before, against growth of 1.4 per cent in March and above the 3-month average of 1.5 per cent, the BRC said.  

Prices of ambient food, which can be stored at room temperature, rose by an annual rate of 3.7 per cent, unchanged from the previous month and above the three-month average of 3.4 per cent.

Mike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight at NielsenIQ, which compiles the data with the BRC, said shoppers were continuing to “benefit from lower shop price inflation a year ago, but prices are slowly rising across supply chains, so retailers will be looking at ways to mitigate this as far as possible”.