Inflation and the cost of living.

No problem today filling up at my local petrol station in Somerset.

To add insult to injury we have events brought about by another country that have resulted in the price of oil topping 100$ a barrel today, and being heated by oil as we don't have gas in certain parts of Devon, we've just checked the price to refill the tank. It's exactly half as much again as this time last year!

sixandahalf

M0nica

Freddos are not a good comparison. The price of coco beans reuired to make chocolate has spiralled in the last year. The price of cocoa uadrupled last year, although it has dropped a bit because of poor harvests and disease.

You would be better off comparing the minimum wage with a product which is grown and processed in the UK. Potatoes for example. The price of potatoes has increased by only 75% since 2005 (RPI: Ave price - Potatoes, new loose, per Kg).

In 2005 the minimum hourly wage would buy less than 6kgs of potatoes. At the end of last year it would buy 8kgs.

So that is a positive movement in relative prices - and potatoes are so much healthier to eat than poor uality chocolate bars.

Please, really we are supposed to be uplifted by the price of a bag of spuds?

Why not? They are a good nutritious food stuff, which can be cooked in many different ways and incorporated into so many other dishes. It can be grown as a mjor crop in the UK. It can be distilled to make vodka.

Freddo is a chocolate sweet, whose main ingredient is sugar and contains palm oil and shea butter, origin unknown. Most of the ingredients are imported from other countries.

From every point of view the potato is the superior product. It is homegrown, infinitely flexible in its use. Who can resist a toasted potatocake slathered in melting butter, or you can fry the cakes in bacon fat with a cooked breakfast. mashed with cheese on a shepherds pie, bought at a Firework event, when its cold and wet and you clutch your hot baked potato in your hand for 5 or 10 minutes to benefit from its warmth before eating it.

What can you do with a Freddo? Eat it - and its gone in barely 15 seconds.

I've no idea about Freddos but the cost of food is much cheaper than in the past in, 1988 on minimum wage it took 7 hours work, now it takes 5.5 hours for the same basket. It's housing and fuel costs that have escalated along with all the discretionary purchases that are rightly or wrongly included in the CPI. Air Fares, Sky TV, Take aways, delivery and many others.

David49

I've no idea about Freddos but the cost of food is much cheaper than in the past in, 1988 on minimum wage it took 7 hours work, now it takes 5.5 hours for the same basket. It's housing and fuel costs that have escalated along with all the discretionary purchases that are rightly or wrongly included in the CPI. Air Fares, Sky TV, Take aways, delivery and many others.

I uite agree.

I remember little bars of chocolate about the same size as a Freddo - they were 3d - no minimum wage, but average Saturday (7 hrs) would be £1.50, so about 17?

Chocolate crops have failed and prices shot up, not to mention fair trade, so perhaps not a great example. However, basic jam has gone from 26p to 49p in just 2 years, and the plastic bread to go with has gone from 28 to 55p, not much far off double.

Freddos were the example used by academics when my son studied Economics. Nothing to do with crop failures but shrinkflation. He’s 35 now, so it was over 15 years ago. .

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202603/medium-cergsp-old-potatoes-chart.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202603/medium-fxkckn-ons-sweets-and-chocolate.png

Why not include those things in CPI? They are consumer products whatever judgement calls some might make about necessity. People take holidays, stream TV and don’t always want to cook after a long day at work.

And, of course, CPI runs lower than RPI as it excludes housing costs and council tax, the two biggest costs for most households. Although I don’t mind paying CT, it is my own largest annual cost even with single occupancy discount. It’s more than I spend on groceries in a year and more than 2.5 times what I spend on energy.

I agree that chocolate isn’t a good yardstick as cocoa prices have rocketed in recent years due to climate change, disease and global political problems. More recently, wholesale cocoa prices have reduced but any UPF is going to be affected by other factors not least the cost of raw ingredients that have to be imported, transport costs, taxes. Wrappings made from aluminium and petrochemicals are expensive to produce. Then there’s the amount of energy used to produce UPFs and household products in general.

I used to watch the BBC’s Inside the Factory. Past series with Gregg Wallace have now been removed from iPlayer which is understandable but means they can no longer be watched. Remember when the price of tinned foods and toilet paper rocketed? Energy prices and raw materials.

China was buying up as much aluminium as it could as it geared up to reopening manufacturing post-pandemic. The wholesale price went sky high as a result and was reflected in the price of tinned soup, baked beans etc.

I agree with M0nica. Potatoes are far more nutritious and a good source of slow-release energy ... and inexpensive.

ONS publish helpful charts showing the price of old white potatoes and sweets and chocolate over time. Prices fluctuate but a year ago potato prices were lower than they were ten year before whereas the price of sweets and chocolate was much higher.

A baking potato costing 20p and taking no more than 12 minutes to cook (6 minutes each in the microwave then the airfryer to crisp the skin, a salad side and that's lunch for about 50p. A single Freddo costs 45p £25 (yes, pounds) a kg versus a humble spud 79p a kg.

The point I was trying to make was that any comparison between re;lative prices like this one is bound to fail. The price of all goods float up and down at the whim of demand, markets, weather and disease.

This why governments draw up indices like the CPI and RPI. Over years the contents of the basket of goods that make up the indices has chaned as has the weighting given to different items to reflect changing domestic shopping habits.

Yes, a Freddo, would indeed make an ideal subject for a study of shrinkflation. In fact almost any chocolate bar or sweet would. It does, however, shed a light on the life phase the lecturer was living in - the child rearing age, even the small child rearing phase. The number of adults that regulalry eat Freddos, must be uite small.

Another staple is milk. Now 1.75 for 4 pints and fairly recently was 1.20. I only hope the farmers are getting a fair price. In fact I noticed yesterday a 2 pinter was the same price as a 4 pinter in the last couple of years. So effectively has doubled.

A baking potato costing 20p and taking no more than 12 minutes to cook (6 minutes each in the microwave then the airfryer to crisp the skin, a salad side and that's lunch for about 50p

Per person.
Plus that wont feed a hungry working man at lunchtime. Well not those that I know.

Another staple is milk. Now 1.75 for 4 pints and fairly recently was 1.20. I only hope the farmers are getting a fair price.

They are not. Milk price they get gone down from about 40p per litre or whatever it is to 30p. Fairly recently. I overheard.

… Plus that won’t feed a hungry working man at lunchtime. Well not those that I know.

I never said it would although it does me after a busy working in the garden.

My decorator, who has just finished another job for me, always works solidly from 8:00am to 4:00pm with just a ten minute break midday for a flask of soup.

It was Reform’s Lee Anderson’s (then a Tory) who claimed in 2022 that one could cook a meal from scratch for about 30p. That meal was three spoons of stew, curry, stroganoff etc from a small plastic cup. £50 spent on food for a Ready Steady Cook challenge at the local college. Food cooked by a professional chef (using store cupboard ingredients as they did on TV) and served in 175 little cups. £50/175 = £0.29.

The point I was making is that potatoes are inexpensive, nutritious and easy to cook and far, far better value than a chocolate bar.

The point I was making is that potatoes are inexpensive, nutritious and easy to cook and far, far better value than a chocolate bar.

Fair enough.

Food producers are getting pretty bad deal because the staple foods - bread, milk, beans etc etc are sold below cost, so unless there is a shortage of supply producers loose money.

Graphite I agree with M0nica. Potatoes are far more nutritious and a good source of slow-release energy ... and inexpensive.

A baking potato costing 20p and taking no more than 12 minutes to cook (6 minutes each in the microwave then the airfryer to crisp the skin, a salad side and that's lunch for about 50p. A single Freddo costs 45p £25 (yes, pounds) a kg versus a humble spud 79p a kg.

Agreed.

We eat potatoes for lunch often. Also, there are typically a few cooked, ready to peel and chop, in fridge - easy to fry, make into soup, add to cold salads.

It doesn't matter what the nutritional value is; the Freddo Index is a satirical one.
fullfact.org/online/freddos-vs-inflation/

Surely no-one is really taking it really seriously?

I can’t get excited about the price of a chocolate bar although I take the point made in The Times article … here it is with the paywall removed:

archive.is/20251120150950/https://www.thetimes.com/money/family-finances/article/price-of-freddo-2025-uk-inflation-economy-qg9sgnl8t#selection-3667.89-3671.202

the ability to afford small indulgences is an important indicator of economic and social health.

Reading the article, what struck me the most is that the UK’s food inflation rate (4.9%) is so much higher than Italy (2.7%), Spain 2.4% and France 1.3% …

A reliance on imported food is one contributing factor, because the price of imported food products has risen at twice the rate of domestic food, according to the Office for National Statistics.

In countries that produce more of their own food, prices have not gone up as much, as their food inflation figures for October show.

Another point made is that the less expensive supermarkets undercut the price of the Mondelez/Cadbury Freddo with their own brands. Aldi has its own version of the Freddo in Deeno the dinosaur. A multipack of ten Deenos cost £1.99, compared with £1.40 for four Freddos at other supermarkets so one can still buy an equivalent for 20p.

Allira

It doesn't matter what the nutritional value is; the Freddo Index is a satirical one.
fullfact.org/online/freddos-vs-inflation/

Surely no-one is really taking it really seriously?

Oh yes they are! 🤣🤣

Graphite I can’t get excited about the price of a chocolate bar although I take the point made in The Times article … here it is with the paywall removed

archive.is/20251120150950/https://www.thetimes.com/money/family-finances/article/price-of-freddo-2025-uk-inflation-economy-qg9sgnl8t#selection-3667.89-3671.202

the ability to afford small indulgences is an important indicator of economic and social health. We can all agree here.

Reading the article, what struck me the most is that the UK’s food inflation rate (4.9%) is so much higher than Italy (2.7%), Spain 2.4% and France 1.3%

A reliance on imported food is one contributing factor, because the price of imported food products has risen at twice the rate of domestic food, according to the Office for National Statistics.In countries that produce more of their own food, prices have not gone up as much, as their food inflation figures for October show.

Perhaps the Times article was pointing how people could lower outgoings by avoiding imported food products, takeaways, and unnecessary foods.

Everybody knows a potato is more filling and has more nutritional value than a chocolate bar. We don't need a lecture.

For some people the so called cost of living crisis is indeed that.

We don’t need a lecture
Doesn’t mean you won’t get one though! 🤣🤣🤣

RosiesMawagain

^We don’t need a lecture^
Doesn’t mean you won’t get one though! 🤣🤣🤣

Now that made me laugh! Thanks.

"the ability to afford small indulgences is an important indicator of economic and social health. We can all agree here."

It's not the small indulgences that are the problem, its the big ones, compared with 50 yrs ago those that can afford it are spending a great deal deal more on holiday, homes, cars technology and services.
It's only economic health for those that can afford it, at the expense of those that cannot afford it

David49

"the ability to afford small indulgences is an important indicator of economic and social health. We can all agree here."

It's not the small indulgences that are the problem, its the big ones, compared with 50 yrs ago those that can afford it are spending a great deal deal more on holiday, homes, cars technology and services.
It's only economic health for those that can afford it, at the expense of those that cannot afford it

Completely agree. Many of the little indulgences that made life so pleasant when younger, were because we were less well off, so Saturday sweets, an ice cream in summer, even ripe strawberries were all little indulgences, that lightened up life.

I can remember that for a few years we lived near a mushroom farm and on Saturday my DF would walk round to buy mushroom stalks(only) for 6d a uarter pound, to eat with our Sunday cooked breakfast. That uarter pound was spread across 5 breakfasts, and I did not grow up in a poor family.

Now people eat ice cream almost daily, can afford to eat strawberries all year round and children seem unable to leave the house unless clutching a packet of sweets or bag of crisps.