UK food prices are rising at their fastest rate in nearly 45 years, with grocery prices up 19.1% in the year to April.
“I know people pay more for bags of potatoes or bags of carrots, but it’s not because we want more money,” said Tessa Elliott, a potato farmer in Pembrokeshire.
“Our costs have skyrocketed and we’re still trying to understand where we can even turn a profit.”
Cash flow is always a challenge for potato growers, who can wait more than a year to pay for their crops after harvest.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, food production costs have jumped.
“For fertilizer we used to pay £290 a single and it has gone up to £900 for the same bag,” said Tessa, whose family has run Creswell Barn Farm for more than 40 years.
“Seed prices had gone up by £40 a ton. Labor costs had gone up. There was nothing that hadn’t doubled, if not more.”
While these costs have undermined farmers’ profits, they have also translated into higher costs for consumers, with food prices rising by about a fifth between April 2022 and April this year.
The Competition and Markets Authority is currently investigating all supermarkets over the hike in food and fuel prices amid allegations that customers are overpaying.
But supermarkets insist they are keeping prices “as low as possible”.
Matthew Hunt runs Filco, an independent chain of supermarkets in Wales, and said: “It’s a pretty perfect storm right now, and you’re seeing cost increases coming from all directions – the main three being fuel, labor and power.”
He said his company is not passing on the full cost increases to customers: “It stresses how we operate and we have to look at ourselves and see where we can get costs out of our operations.”
The UK government floated the idea of a voluntary price cap for basic foodstuffs, but this was coldly received by industry.
“It’s a beautiful soundtrack,” Matthew said. “How it will work in stores is baffling to me.”