This purchase this morning made me realise just how expensive food is becoming

The food campaigner Jack Monroe has been talking about how it is basics such as rice and pasta which have had the highest percentage price rises, these of course, are foods which many use as fillers, carbohydrates which fill up growing children. Vegetable oil is another one, due I suppose to the Ukraine crisis as they are major producers of sunflower oil. I bought half a dozen bottles for the food bank, and even in Aldi, the cheapest vegetable oil was £1.85, and that was a mixed oil, not pure rapeseed or sunflower.

I have been to lidl this morning and there was no pasta at all on the shelves, just an empty space

Sarah74

Cream crackers are either unavailable now or very expensive….

This might be why. Workers are in dispute with Jacob’s. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-63622881

I never quite understand the cooking oil thing. I use at most two bottles a year, so it’s not a huge part of my grocery bill.

From the huge arrays of cooking oil in almost every supermarket, I must assume that many people use vast quantities, possibly in deep fryers, although nowadays it is much easier to cook chips in an air fryer.

But, I agree with you SueDonim, a couple of bottles a year, and very little more even when I had 2 children in the house.