Latest Debt News
Food prices rise by nearly 5%
08/05/2008 11:38:00
Rising costs for wheat and milk have resulted in food prices going up by nearly five per cent last month, according to new research.
Findings from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) revealed that food prices increased by 4.7 per cent, resulting in shoppers facing rises on the cost of goods of up to 1.2 per cent.
The body said that this was the sharpest rise since the index was begun back in November 2006 with the increasing cost of commodities being blamed for the rise.
Stephen Robertson, director of the BRC, said: "Food prices have gone up, but the retail price of food is rising much more slowly than the farmgate price of commodities such as wheat and milk."
"Retailers are succeeding at protecting customers from the full force of increasing commodity, energy and transport costs by absorbing most of those increases themselves, even when it's at the expense of their own margins," he continued.
The research showed that the price of spirits and liqueurs rose by seven per cent.
Previously, the GfK Nop consumer confidence barometer recently fell to its worst level for 15 years.
© Adfero Ltd