Proactive Investors - The prices of value items continue to outpace inflation and branded products at supermarkets.
A Which? supermarket food and drink tracker, which analysed more than 25,000 products at eight supermarkets, found value items had increased by 21.6% in January compared to a year earlier.
Branded groceries, on the other hand, rose by 13.2% year-on-year, premium groceries by 13.4% and standard own-brand foods by 18.9%, while supermarket inflation for January was 15.9%, Which? said.
Based on three-month average prices from the end of January 2023 compared to the end of January 2022, the largest percentage increase was a 2-litre bottle of Hubbard’s food store water from Sainsbury’s, which more than doubled in price to 35p.
Among some of the biggest risers was muesli at Sainsbury’s, which jumped 87.5% to £2.25 in a year, tins of sliced carrots at Tesco which jumped 63% to 33p and pork sausages from Asda, which were 58.2% more expensive at £1.27.
Supermarkets that were tracked by Which? include Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, J Sainsbury PLC, Tesco PLC and Waitrose.
“With household budgets under increasing pressure we are absolutely committed to helping our customers, by keeping a laser focus on the cost of the weekly shop,” said Tesco.
High prices come at a time when essential items on shopping lists are being rationed by supermarkets because of shortages.
Limits by Tesco, Aldi, Asda and Morrison’s have been placed on the amount of fruit and vegetables that customers can buy.
Post-Brexit trade and poor weather in Spain and North Africa have been blamed for the shortages.