Why are UK food prices still rocketing and when will it stop?
‘I t’s diabolical because if I put my prices up people are going to stop coming to my shop,” says Bally Singh, owner of Hooked Fish and Chips about the hard decisions as high energy and food costs threaten his business.
Singh’s fish and chip shop in West Drayton, in the outer suburbs of London, is one of 10,500 in the UK battling to keep customers happy as the cost of a meal, once as cheap as chips, soars, in grim lockstep with wider UK food prices which are climbing at the fastest rate since 1977.
A fish supper now costs an average of £9 in the UK, up £1.44, or nearly a fifth more, in the past 12 months as shop owners pass on rising costs. In Hooked, a large cod and chips has gone up by £1.25 to £9.50 which is competitive as, in other parts of London, you can expect to pay north of a tenner.
Singh pats the huge frying range that fills the width of the shop. It is gleaming after a recent polish but is a gas guzzler and one of the reasons his energy bill has tripled. That’s just the start: cod is up nearly 80% at £195 a box. Now potatoes are a problem with the price surging nearly 60% as a result of supply issues caused by last summer’s drought.
The squeeze means that some months Singh has not paid himself anything. Some customers grumble about the cost, he says, and these days the shop sells less fish as regulars opt for cheaper items such as a battered sausage or saveloy: “Fish and chips is a British tradition but it’s become expensive when it used to be the cheapest.”
A takeaway or fast-food fix is usually an affordable treat but Office of National Statistics data showed prices up 13% in the year to March. Fish and chips saw the biggest rise, at 19%, but burgers and kebabs were up 17% and 14% respectively. In restaurants,
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