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Price cuts keep food inflation at all-time low
Food inflation stayed at a record low this month, bringing relief to hard-pressed consumers.
Overall shop prices (including non-food) were down 1.8% in September, making it the 17th consecutive month of deflation, according to the BRC-nielsen shop price index.
Food inflation remained at 0.3% unchanged from August, and the lowest level recorded by the index since it began in 2006. Non-food deflation accelerated from 2.9% to 3.2%.
Mike Watkins, Head of retailer and business insight at Nielsen said: There are historic low levels of price increases across the high street, with more price cuts expected from supermarkets over the next few weeks, shoppers will continue to get great savings.
The fresh food category fell to a flat rate of 0% for the first time since February 2010 with upward pressure on the category coming from oils & fats, meat, fruit, fish and convenience food. Downward pressure came from milk, eggs, cheese and vegetables.
Ambient food inflation remained at 0.6%, experiencing downward pressure from all its major sub-categories apart from alcoholic beverages, which reported inflation above the category average.
Helen Dickinson, BRC Director General said: The outlook for inflation remains modest. Falling commodity prices, the strengthening of Sterling, benign pressure in the supply chain and critically, fierce competition across the retail industry suggests lower shop prices for consumers will continue.
Separately, new data from IGD revealed that shoppers thirst for the discounters continues unabated.
Over half of shoppers (54%) have used a discounter in the past month, which is the highest level for four years when we started tracking the data. Examples of good retail disciplines that shoppers tell us they like about discounters include: Easy to find items, move around the store quickly and meat clearly labelled as British. People want pricing that makes a real difference, shoppers have told us the discounters have listened and responded to them.
