Price of onions, carrots and potatoes hit highest level in 40 years with costs rising by up to 70% since start of the year after freak weather wiped out UK supplies
- Wholesalers resort to expensive imports to keep up supplies to supermarkets
- Red hot summer and deep freeze just before Christmas reduced yields
The price of onions, carrots and potatoes have hit their highest level in 40 years after freak weather wiped out UK supplies, according to industry leaders.
The combination of last summer’s heatwave followed by a period of extreme cold just before Christmas saw one of the lowest yields of many vegetable crops for decades, said The Grocer magazine.
This has led to a shortage of homegrown versions of the kitchen staples.
In turn, it has seen wholesalers resort to expensive imports to keep up supplies to the major supermarket chains, the trade journal added.
Analysts Assosia Data, for The Grocer, found prices on the shelves for onions since the start of the year were now 70 per cent more expensive, potato lines were as much as 60 per cent more and carrots up to 37.5 per cent more.
The price of potatoes were found to be as much as 60 per cent more than the start of the year
This time the rising costs of carrots are not linked to soaring inflation – but to extreme weather
Tim O’Malley, MD of vegetable wholesales Nationwide Produce, told the publication: ‘Wholesale spot prices (for three the three vegetable lines) are the highest level I’ve ever known, and I’ve been in the industry 40 years.’
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But, at a time when many supermarket products were hit by soaring inflation due to other factors, this was not the case for potatoes, onions and carrots.
O’Malley said: ‘The main reason by far is not the Ukrainian war, not high energy prices, not the chronic shortage of labour in agriculture, not Brexit – it’s the weather.
‘The red hot summer and the deep freeze just before Christmas in particular reduced yields massively and in the worst case, wiped out crops.
‘The stark reality is, we’re now at the back end of the season and have pretty much run out of crop so we’re relying heavily on expensive imports or we’re robbing the new season.’
Some lines were increased in price ‘multiple times a week’ recently, said The Grocer, which added: ‘As a result, the supply of some core lines were now ‘desperately short’ and the situation is unlikely to improve for at least the rest of the month.’
Earlier this year a similar problem hit popular salad vegetables which led to shortages on the shelves and even rationing of some favourites, it added.
Ballooning food prices are now the principle driving force behind Britain’s inflation crisis, after new figures last month revealed the cost of household staples has surged at the fastest rate in almost 45 years.
Some of he biggest increases recorded in household essentials over the past year has seen the likes of olive oil surge in price by 46.4 per cent and sugar increase by 47.4 per cent
The skyrocketing prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks are now the main driving force behind Britain’s inflation crisis
This graph shows three measures of inflation: The consumer prices index (CPI), the consumer prices index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) and the owner occupiers’ housing costs measure (OOH)
Families have been hit with skyrocketing shopping bills, with sugar soaring in cost by 47.4 per cent and olive oil rising 46.4 per cent in the last 12 months while the cost of eggs have surged 37 per cent and flour and cereals by 30 per cent, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The recent figures showed food bills rose 19.3 per cent, down only slightly on March’s eye-watering 19.6 per cent.
The crisis has caused other household staples like pasta to swell by 27.7 per cent in cost over the past year – while yoghurts saw prices rise by 24 per cent.
This graphic shows the CPI goods, services and core annual inflation rates in the UK for the last decade, between April 2013 and April 2023
While this graph breaks down data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) showing how inflation has risen over retail prices and food in the past 12 months
Meats have also ballooned in price, with traditionally cheaper options such as offal skyrocketing by 28.4 per cent and pork increasing by 27.2 per cent.
The news comes as it was announced the overall UK inflation recently fell sharply to hit single figures for the first time since August – but still nowhere near as much as economists expected.
The latest figures prompted Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to warn that food prices remain ‘worryingly high’.
The higher-than-expected figure will put pressure on the Bank of England to hike interest rates further from the 15-year peak of 4.5 per cent
Inflation is seen is a measure of the cost of living and to calculate it the ONS keeps track of the price of hundreds of everyday items – or ‘basket of goods’.
The rate has surged over the past 18 months, as food and energy bills soared, squeezing household budgets for millions of struggling families.
The headline CPI dropped to an annual rate of 8.7 per cent in April, from 10.1 per cent the previous month.
It is the slowest pace since March last year.
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