MITEY TIGHT

Spread’s maker warns of even more price hikes

THE maker of Marmite has joined a flood of big firms warning of more price rises to come.

Unilever, whose big brands range from Pot Noodles and Persil to Bovril and Brut, already hiked prices more than eight per cent in the first three months of this year to offset soaring costs. It said yesterday: “This period of unprecedented inflation requires us to take further pricing action.”

Unilever CEO Alan Jope, a Scot who graduated from Edinburgh University Business School, added: “While we’re acutely aware of the pressure on consumers, we believe that increasing prices in response to this extreme commodity cost pressure is the right thing to do.”

A host of other food and drink makers, from KitKat maker Nestle to lager firm Heineken, have signalled rises to claw back increases in everything from energy to labour costs.

The hit to shoppers depends how much of that supermarkets and others pass on.

Unilever said it expected costs to jump by £1.8billion in the first half of this year, and £2.3billion in the second, partly because of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Barclays analyst Warren Ackerman said Unilever’s costs would quadruple compared with a year ago but warned: “This is not the peak.”

Unilever is affected by surging prices of soya bean oil, grains and other foods used in products from Hellmann’s ketchup to Knorr stock cubes.

The firm upped prices in Europe for retailers and others by 5.4 per cent in the first three months of 2022.