Food Inflation Slims Down To Single-Digits

FOOD price inflation in the UK has fallen to single digits for the first time since July 2022.

According to data company Kantar, inflation on groceries dipped to 9.7 per cent between October 1 and 29.

Describing the reduction as a “big milestone” for shoppers and retailers, Fraser McKevitt, who heads Kantar’s Retail and Consumer Insight department said that people were still “feeling the pinch.”

He pointed out that year-on-year price reductions were limited to major grocery categories that included milk, butter and dried pasta.

Retailers were still looking at ways of softening the blow for shoppers and slowing the rate of price rises, McKevitt added.

“This has included upping the ante on promotions,” he said. “Every single one of the grocers increased the proportion of sales through deals, versus last year, which is something that has only happened on one other occasion in nearly 10 years.”

Kantar found that Lidl was once more the fastest-growing retailer, where sales over the three months that ended on October 29 were up by 14.7 per cent.

Aldi, where sales increased by 13.2 per cent, attracted 207,000 more customers than during the same period in 2022.  Together with Waitrose, where sales rose by 5.4 per cent, it was the only supermarket which increased its number of shoppers year-on-year. Aldi and Waitrose took 9.7 per cent and 4.6 per cent of the market.

Sainsbury’s was the fastest-growing traditional supermarket in October, and sales increased by 10.1 per cent over the previous quarter. Sainsbury’s lso announced recently said that it had spent £118 million (€135.5 million) since March as it strove to  keep prices down.