Food to overtake energy bills in driving up UK cost of living crisis
Until now, the cost of living crisis has been most closely associated with energy bills - but soon food costs will overtake energy as the main inflation driver.
Food costs are set to overtake energy bills in driving up UK inflation this summer, a new report has warned.
The report by the Resolution Foundation has found that the cost of living crisis – until now dominated by sky-high energy bills – will soon be driven by rocketing food prices, once again hitting poorer UK households the hardest.
According to the report, whilst energy prices have risen faster in the UK it is still food that makes up the largest share of a typical household’s outgoings.
As a result, as food prices continue to rise whilst energy bills fall back this summer it is predicted that the cost of eating will become the biggest threat to people’s finances.
Food prices have increased by 25 per cent over the past year and a half, greatly impacting the squeeze on living standards in low and middle-income households.
And now, grocery bills are expected to increase again over the summer.
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According to the thinktank behind the report, it was not clear that politicians were currently prepared for another year of food price rises or that “policy debates have caught up with the scale of what is going on”.
Food price inflation reached around 19 per cent in March, the highest in almost half a century. As a result, the report asserts that food prices will be ‘contributing far more than energy to CPI inflation through the remainder of 2023.’
The report said: “By this summer, food costs will have overtaken energy bills in the scale of the shock they are administering to family finances.”
The Resolution added that it can also model the scale of the impact across individual households, suggesting that this summer 16 million households (56 per cent) will face a big shock when it comes to paying for their food.
The Bank of England governer Andrew Bailey told business leaders earlier this month that he was ‘concerned’ that food and other non-energy prices would remain elevated.
Typically, food prices in the UK fall in the summer as locally-grown crops replace those imported from abroad.
However, factory gate prices for milk, meat and other foods have accelerated, in some cases by more than 50% year on year.
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The Resolution Foundation’s report, Food for Thought, says food prices are expected to contribute “more to overall inflation than energy” in the months ahead.
“Between March and September 2023, food prices are expected to contribute around 2 percentage points to inflation each month, while the contribution of energy prices is set to fall from 3 percentage points to less than 1,” the report estimates.
The cost to the nation from higher food prices since the 2019-20 financial year would be £28bn by the end of the summer, compared with an extra £25bn cost from higher energy prices, it added.
Lalitha Try, one of the report’s authors, said: “Everyone realises food prices are rising but it’s less clear that the scale of the increases has been understood in Westminster.”
“What rising food prices have in common with surging energy bills is that they pose a greater challenge to lower-income households, who spend a higher proportion of their income on food – 15%, compared with 10% for the highest-income households in 2019-20.
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“As a result, the effective inflation rate for the poorest 10th of households was almost 50% higher compared with the richest 10th of households in March.”
Featured image – RawPixel
Eats
Marco Pierre White praises Manchester restaurant serving ‘the best pizza’ he’s EVER had
Danny Jones
Legendary chef Marco Pierre White has given his verdict on where he thinks does THE best pizza not just in the UK but perhaps in the entire world, and it’s right here in Manchester
Rudy’s, Nell’s, Double Zero and now this – we really are spoilt for slices in 0161, aren’t we?
Pierre White, who was not only the first Brit to ever win three Michelin stars but the youngest person to achieve the feat in history, recently visited the restaurant in question and was more than happy to share his bold claims, dubbing it “the very best I’ve ever had in my life”.
That’s saying quite something, not only from one of the most famous chefs in the world, but given his own family heritage. He even saw fit to sign the menu and write the man in the kitchen a thank-you note.
A recent London export, which only just launched in spring 2025, the 63-year-old chef, entrepreneur and TV personality says that Forbici is now his number one, stating simply: “Let the pizzas do the talking.”
Noting that he’s been all over the world and eaten at some of the most highly-rated venues in the world (especially given the fact that he is of Italian heritage on his mother’s side), including some of the most authentic you’ll find in the likes of Naples, Rome, and so on, he still seemed confident in his declaration.
Citing other famous names in the world of cooking, like Nancy Silverton of Pizzeria Mozza fame, as well as fellow TV chef and restaurateur Mario Batali, he says that the creative takes on Neapolitan ‘pies’ that master baker Davide Argentino is currently cooking up are nothing short of “delicious.”
Having first become famous down in the capital for its name, which simply translates as ‘scissors’ – also the chosen utensil given to diners for cutting up their pizzas – it proved a smash hit when it made its way up North, garnering massive opening day queues outside its restaurant on the corner of Cross Street.
Better still, you can now order it to take away, too… Game-changer.
Now, it goes without saying that we’re lucky enough to have many restaurants serving some of the authentic food from various regions all over Italy, not to mention a plethora of incredible pizza spots in the city centre and the wider boroughs.
It’s no exaggeration, therefore, to say that we struggle picking our absolute favourite from week to week at this point.
What we will say is that we bloody love Forbici, too, and are glad to see them getting so much recognition since arriving in the region.
You can get 25% off your bill when eating out at this well-known Italian restaurant with a secret code
Danny Jones
Fancy going out for tea but still trying not to spend too much money at this time of year? Well, Manchester, you can get 25% off your bill at an already affordable British restaurant chain by simply saying a special phrase.
This deal is only available this week, though, so we wouldn’t wait around.
We’ve all been there: you’re fed up of getting home after working and having to cook, so you start trying to justify ‘just one‘ night out, but it can be a real pull between enjoyment and ease versus trying to save those pennies – especially with the festive period looming.
Luckily, well-known Italian restaurant group Carluccio’s, who have a site right here in central Manchester, is offering a significant discount by simply asking for the bill in Italian. Simple as.
As a recognisable name on the UK high street, the authentic Italian eatery dates back nearly three and a half decades, the London-born deli and food shop going on to open its first-ever sit-down venue called Carluccio’s Caffè back in 1999.
In addition to their long-standing Manchester location in Piccadilly Station, the brand was also a shop-window establishment for the Trafford Centre, sitting front and centre as one of the first places to eat as you walked in the Orient entrance.
Now, as for how you access this welcome bit of money off your bill, it’s very straightforward and can be secured as fast as you can say “The bill, please”; well, actually, you need to ask for it in Italian, as it is this phrase that Carluccio’s has dubbed the ‘secret code’.
Following a study by language learning app, Preply, which recently carried out research into menu anxiety and struggling to make a decision when dining out, they’ve teamed up with Carluccio‘s to help push people to feel more confident ordering dishes not in their native tongue.
They found that almost half (49%) have felt embarrassed about not speaking another language, with one fifth of those surveyed lacking the confidence to try and pronounce foreign words, while one in six worried they’d be judged for getting it wrong.
Well, there’s no getting it wrong in this instance, as the Carluccio’s and Preply are giving you the specific keywords not only to ask for the bill in Italian – “Il conto, per favore” – but to unlock the bonus of a quarter off the final sum.
Anna Pyshna, spokesperson at Preply, says: “People may know how to say gnocchi in theory, but when the waiter’s standing there, confidence can vanish. We want to show that getting things wrong is part of learning and sometimes, even worth a discount.
“By turning a simple phrase into a real-world reward, we’re helping people take that first, brave step to speak up. It’s a reminder that the language learning process doesn’t start with perfection, it starts with the willingness to try.”
So, that really is it: dine at any of their restaurants across the country (including here in Manchester) and ask for the bill in Italian to get 25% off your bill; once again, the offer is only on until 9 November. You can find your nearest Carluccio’s location HERE.
Georgina Pellant -
23rd May 2023 
