Low Cost Foods: Analysis from the ONS
Article by Ellie Morris
With the cost of living slowly rising in the UK, questions have been raised as to how this may have affected even the lowest-cost items on our supermarket shelves. A recent survey carried out by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) (1) has tracked the change in price for 30 low-cost everyday grocery items, including pasta, meat, poultry, condiments, and fruits and vegetables, across 7 main supermarket retailers since April 2021.
It is important to note that the data presented in both the ONS article, and therefore this blog, is from highly experimental data which is based on both prices and product information for 30 web-scrapped items. Web scrapping is the collecting of data at a specific point in time from a webpage. In simpler terms, it’s a bit like a screenshot of a webpage where the data is collected and analysed for that particular point in time only. Any changes that occur before or after this ‘screenshot’ are not included in in the overall results.
Limitations with this kind of data
Both data that has been web scrapped and experimental data may lead to some uncertainty with the estimates provided, as it only represents the products available on the website at the time of the data collection, rather than what was actually available in store and purchased across this 12-month period. For example, let’s say when the data was collected from a supermarket website in April 2021 they may have had a limited time price reduction on a bag of carrots. However by April 2022 the price of these carrots may have returned to the original price but compared with April 2021 it would seem that their cost has increased. Product substitution at certain retailers, where certain items were unavailable at the time of data collection and so were replaced were with a similar product at the next-lowest price, may also have altered the results.
What does the data actually say?
Despite the issues mentioned above with collecting the data, the data still provided some interesting results. Between April 2021 and April 2022 there was considerable variation between the prices of these low-cost items, however it was unclear from the data when the exact timings of these changes occurred, and also depended on the individual product.
Price rises
Compared to April 2021, the prices of these low-cost items in April 2022 rose in line with official measures of inflation (price increases) by around 6%, with 0.9% of this increase happening between March and April 2022.
The largest increases in this final month were seen for breakfast cereals (6%) and mixed frozen vegetables and vegetable oil (5%). The lowest-cost items whose prices rose at the fastest rate included pasta (up 50%), crisps (up 17%), bread (up 16%), minced beef (up 16%) and rice (up 15%).
In terms of monetary value, the largest price rises, on average, were measured for beef mince and chicken breast, which were up 32p and 28p, respectively, since April 2021. Across the 7 major retailers, pasta saw an increase of 17p, vegetable oil increased by 14p, and crisps and rice both increased by 12p.
Price drops
Over the 12 month period between April 2021 and April 2022 there was also a price decrease measured for 6 of the 30 low-cost items. These 6 items were potatoes (down 14%), cheese (down 7%), pizza (down 4%), chips (down 3%), sausages (down 3%) and apples (down 1%).
In monetary value terms, this equates to a 12p decrease in price for a 2.5kg bag of potatoes, followed by a 7p decrease for 225g of cheese, and a 4p decrease for 300g of pizza.
Additional resources
It’s really important to remember that it’s still possible to maintain and have a healthy and balanced diet, despite the rise in food and general living costs. We have some fabulous content on the Rhitrition platforms, from blogs to podcast episodes, to help guide you with this.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/supermarkets-dirty-tricks/id1441209943?i=1000512020732
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/eat-well-on-a-budget/id1441209943?i=1000469909480
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/more-plants-less-waste/id1441209943?i=1000507251158
https://www.rhitrition.com/blog/how-to-eat-well-on-a-budget
This blog was written by Ellie Morris, the Clinic Manager & Marketing Assistant for Rhitrition and soon-to-been associated registered nutritionist. She is about to finish her MSc in Applied Human Nutrition at Oxford Brookes, and has previously completed an internship with Clarissa Lenherr Nutrition, and was an applied sports nutrition intern at the University of Birmingham. Ellie has also had some experience as part of the MyNutriWeb team to learn the behind the scenes of one of the UK’s leading nutrition CPD resources. She shares yummy meal and snack ideas over on her Instagram @nutritiouslyellie. All information used in this blog is from the ONS website (see reference below).
References:
(1) https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/trackingthelowestcostgroceryitemsukexperimentalanalysis/april2021toapril2022 (accessed 3rd June 2022)