The rising cost of food will soon overtake the price of energy, hitting poorer households hardest, campaigners have warned.
But the Resolution Foundation says it is ‘not clear that politicians are prepared for another year of food price rises.’
The research group’s report, Food for Thought, says food prices will contribute more to overall inflation than energy in the months ahead.
It says inflation hits the poorer households much harder than it affects the wealthiest because they spend more of their income on food.
Food prices usually fall in the summer as UK crops replace more expensive imports, but factory gate prices for milk, meat and other foods have accelerated, in some cases by more than 50% year on year.
Lalitha Try, one of the report’s authors, said: ‘Everyone realises food prices are rising but it’s less clear that the scale of the increases has been understood in Westminster.’
She added: ‘What rising food prices have in common with surging energy bills is that they pose a greater challenge to lower-income households, who spend a higher proportion of their income on food – 15%, compared with 10% for the highest-income households in 2019-20.
‘As a result, the effective inflation rate for the poorest 10th of households was almost 50% higher compared with the richest 10th of households in March.’
