Shop price inflation rises to 2.1% in October, its highest since early 2024
Food prices in shops were 2.9% higher than a year ago and non-food prices 1.7% higher, according to the British Retail Consortium, which wants the Chancellor to ease retailers' costs in Wednesday's Budget.
By Daily Oracles News Team2 min read
Prices in UK shops rose at their fastest annual rate in around two and a half years in October, as retailers passed on more of the cost increases they had been absorbing.
The British Retail Consortium's shop price index, compiled with NielsenIQ, showed annual inflation of 2.1% this month, up from 1.4% in September. The three-month average stands at 1.6%. Prices were collected in the first week of October.
The jump came mainly from two places. Ambient food, the packaged and tinned groceries that sit on shelves rather than in chillers, went from 2.2% to 3.2% in a month. Non-food goods more than doubled their rate of increase, to 1.7%. Fresh food inflation did not move.
The BRC said some of the pressure on food had been held back by Halloween promotions on sweets and treats. NielsenIQ pointed to global supply chain pressures, and said price cuts by food retailers since late summer had delayed part of the effect.
Why retailers say costs are coming through
The trade body said shops had taken on large cost increases over the past two years and could no longer keep all of them away from customers. It listed higher business rates, employment costs, energy bills and packaging taxes.
With the Budget due on Wednesday, the BRC set out three requests to the Chancellor: reduce employment costs, cancel a planned 3.5% increase in business rates, and take shops out of the high-value surtax.
A narrower basket than the CPI
The BRC index tracks a fixed basket of goods sold in shops, so it is narrower than the official consumer prices index, which also covers services, energy, rents and transport. It is still watched as an early sign of where the grocery and goods elements of official inflation are heading, because it is published weeks before the ONS figures for the same month.
The next official reading comes on 18 November, when the Office for National Statistics publishes consumer price inflation for October. The BRC's November index will be the first of its monthly readings to cover prices collected after the Budget.
