Tempo of meals inflation is slowing down – however costs nonetheless surged 15% within the 12 months to June

Food inflation within the UK has continued to gradual from April’s record-breaking rise – however continues to be up almost 15% 12 months on 12 months, new retail figures present.

It means costs are nonetheless growing, simply at a slower tempo than beforehand.

There was a 14.6% enhance in meals costs within the 12 months as much as June, analysis from the British Retail Consortium and retail analysts NielsenIQ confirmed – barely down from 15.4% recorded in May.

Overall store costs rose 8.4% over the 12 months to June, a slowdown from the 9% recorded within the 12 months as much as May.

Last month’s figures have been the second-fastest annual enhance ever measured by the commerce organisation for UK retailers, second solely to April this 12 months.

The slowed tempo was because of retailers chopping the value of contemporary produce together with milk, cheese and eggs, BRC chief govt Helen Dickson mentioned.

“If the current situation continues, food inflation should drop to single digits later this year,” she mentioned.

The concept of meals inflation peaking was raised once more by the top of retailer and enterprise perception at NielsenIQ, Mike Watkins.

“If global supply chain costs continue to fall, we may now be past the peak of price increases,” he mentioned.

Ms Dickson had mentioned final month there was motive to consider meals inflation “might be peaking”.

“However, with most households needing to save money, purchasing behaviour for the rest of this year is still likely to shift towards essential needs with discretionary consumption being deprioritised or delayed,” Mr Watkins added.

The information comes forward of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s assembly with regulators to see what they’re doing concerning the mounting payments clients are dealing with – and grocery store bosses showing earlier than the Business and Trade Committee.

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When will meals costs begin to fall?

On Wednesday, Mr Hunt is assembly the Competitions and Markets Authority – in addition to Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom – to ask how they’re addressing inflationary pressures being felt by shoppers.

The CMA beforehand introduced it was launching an investigation in as to if individuals are paying greater grocery and gas costs than they need to be.

Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda bosses have additionally confronted questions on meals and gas inflation from MPs

Food inflation has been a a number of of the speed of typical, client worth index inflation.

According to the Office for National Statistics, it stood at 18.3% in May – down from 19.1% in April and 19.2% within the 12 months to March.

As an vitality reliant sector, meals sector costs have been closely impacted by the enhance in vitality payments that skyrocketed after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Increasing labour prices additionally helped push meals manufacturing costs up as unemployment stayed beneath 4%.