Macaroni squeeze Price of pasta soars as shoppers face tough choices in supermarket
FAMILY favouritete mac ’n’ cheese coulduld soon be too pricey for desperate householdsds trying to pay bills.
In the latest blow to the cost of living crisis, it’s been revealed the cheapest pasta has shot up in pricee by 50 per cent in just a year. ar.
In more grim newsws for shoppers, crisps, bread, read, mince and rice are all costing osting more in UK supermarkets. kets.
Small falls were seenn in the cost of potatoes, cheese,e, pizza, chips, sausages and applesples but barely make up for thee huge jump in staples such ass pasta.
The Office for National ational Statistics found the impact of runaway inflation at all the major supermarkets.
It tracked the increases in the price of the lowest cost items in supermarkets.
They chose 30 everyday items they know the least well-off households regularly buy.
They trained algorithms to select algorithms to select the cheapest possible alternatives on the websites of Asda, the Co-op, Iceland, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose and tracked prices over the year.
Despite Aldi and Lidl being among the cheapest supermarkets, they were not included as they do not allow customers to shop online.
It comes as experts recently warned w that the poorest households h in the country are bearing b the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis.
And food campaigner Jack Monroe recently criticised supermarkets for having some of the highest price rises in their budget ranges.
While inflation hit a 40-year high of nine per cent in April as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, those who are least well off spend a larger proportion of their income on the basics, such as energy bills. As a result the Institute for Fiscal Studies has suggested that inflation for the poorest households ran at 10.9 per cent in the year to April.
The latest ONS analysis indicates that, at least for the 30 items it chose, inflation for the cheapest alternatives has been running similar to overall food and alcohol prices, increasing by six to seven per cent. But it does not take into account the costs associated with buying a product.
Potato prices have dropped significantly over the last year but many struggling households avoid potatoes because they take longer to boil and therefore use more expensive gas.
Some food bank users are said to turn down root veg and potatoes because they can’t afford to boil them.