Food prices could go up again due to harvest
Over the past year consumers have had a lot of rising costs to cope with, ranging from bills and energy prices through to petrol and food. In fact, inflation on food as been one of the most marked rises that consumers have had to put up with, and many households – especially those that have children and larger families – have seen the cost of their weekly or monthly shop rocket.
Inflation of food prices has resulted in hundreds of pounds being added to the annual grocery bill for many households, with some food items such as fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry, and baked goods seeing a steep rise in inflation over recent months. Unfortunately, recent reports have indicated that the problem could get much worse, blaming wet harvests for a possible fresh rise on food inflation. If this does happen many families will find that the household finances are even further strained, and further rises could tip some households over the financial edge.
The very wet weather that has been seen of late is already causing problems for farmers, who have said that they are late in harvesting crops, and have had to also use large amounts of fuel in order to dry out the crops and store them. Since January food prices have already risen by an average 8.3 percent according to reports, and the data shows that there could still be sharp rises in inflation in store.
The problems that farmers have been facing due to the wet weather are plentiful. Some have reported the gathering of only a small percentage of crops, and there have even been reports of severe damage to machines and equipment, as farmers try to harvest crops in fields that are completely waterlogged. In fact, the damage from the rain is even said to have affected crop planting for next year, which means that it could have a knock on effect.
Although many have taken the bleak view that these weather related problems are going to result in increased prices when food hits the shelves there are also many that think that if the wet weather subsides the level and the quality of the harvest could still be okay, and this could mean that food inflation will not be affected to the level that some officials have feared that it might.
In the meantime, an increasing number of consumers are continuing to turn to discount food stores such as Aldi and Lidl in order to save money on at least some of their grocery products, and this has sparked price wars amongst the supermarket giants, who want to try and win custom back from the smaller discount food chains. The discount stores, on the other hand, have been trying to expand their product ranges and have started operating more aggressive marketing in some cases in order to try and hang on to the new customers that they have gained over recent months.
Tags: food prices, Marketing, inflation, small percentage, grocery, harvest
