United Kingdom-Change in food shopping.

UNITED KINGDOM-SUPERMARKETS NOTE CHANGE IN SHOPPING TRENDS.

Supermarket boasts of price cuts are failing to deliver meaningful savings to most shoppers, according to this month’s Daily Mail Cost of Living Index.

As a result, two in five people have switched to some cheaper supermarket own labels in the last three months. Fresh items, such as salad vegetables, are showing astonishing annual increases, while meat and dairy products are also much higher than a year ago. For example, a cucumber is up 88% on this time last year to 64p, a pack of six salad tomatoes by 76% to 88p and an iceberg lettuce by 45%. Many of these are imported at this time of year and are more expensive because of the collapse in the value of the pound against the euro and dollar. However, frozen peas, cauliflowers, broccoli and Maris Piper potatoes are all showing double-digit percentage increases which cannot be explained away by currency fluctuations. Farmers have recently been hit with significant cuts in the price they are being paid for milk by dairies and supermarkets, but there is no sign of this being passed on to consumers. In fact semi-skimmed milk and mild cheddar are up by around 15% year on year. The price of wheat has fallen by more than a fifth compared with a year ago, yet British shoppers are paying 22% more for a thick sliced white loaf. The Mail index’s shopping basket of 37 staple foods comes to a total of £56.44 - up by 8% on January and 20.5% in the past year. A family spending £100 a week on groceries last year would have to find another £1,066 this year to put the same food on the table. The index is compiled in association with the price comparison websites MySupermarket.co.uk and uSwitch.com. MySupermarket’s Jonny Steel said it is possible to cut a shopping bill by a fifth by switching to own labels and offers. ’As we all continue to face rising food prices and tighter budgets, many people are becoming more savvy and looking for ways to save money without reducing their shopping list,’ he said. ’In some case this has led to shoppers swapping to cheaper own brand alternatives, giving up their brand loyalty to battle the price increases. ’By downshifting like this on everyday products, and taking full advantage of supermarket offers, we know it is possible to save up to 20% on a typical weekly shop, which counteracts the price increases we are seeing this month.’