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05/29/2008: "UK Families struggling as bills begin to bite"

The numbers and the precise circumstances may vary, but in recent months the Walls' experience has found echoes in family budgets up and down Britain. The global commodity price hikes that have led to riots and civil disorder from Haiti to west Africa to the Philippines may have been greeted, in this country, with British stoicism, but for many, food price rises - a pound here, £10 there - are starting to hurt.

Bread costs 20% more than it did a year ago, according to a survey earlier this month by the price comparison site mysupermarket.com, and rice 60% more. Pasta has gone up by 81% in some shops, and in Tesco it was found to be 113% more expensive. Butter costs 60% more than it did, meat prices too are up. The site puts the annual rise at 19.1%. Though industry observers point out that this figure includes prices from the more expensive Waitrose but not the promotion-focused Morrisons or any budget supermarket chains such as Lidl, it represents the sharpest rise in food prices since records began.

"The odd thing is that a lot of people seem to have only just noticed," says Alex Beckett, a food specialist at the industry magazine The Grocer. "In fact, food prices have been going up for quite some time, but they have dramatically soared in the last 18 months."

[ If a family used to spend £100 a week on food and now spend £120 that is £1040 more a year - and that can mean serious problems. They have to look at cutting costs by buying cheaper ingredients rather than anything ready made, and many will have to stop eating out ]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/29/food.householdbills