Breakfast becoming more costly for Britons – Bloomberg

The cost of a basket of goods used to make the traditional English breakfast has surged to over £35 ($43) due to a lack of fresh vegetables in supermarkets and accelerating inflation, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

According to the outlet’s monthly Breakfast Index, the prices of items that typically feature in the morning fry-up jumped by more than 22% in February compared to the same month of last year.

It was the second straight month that the index – which measures standard packages of eggs, milk, sausage, bacon, bread, butter, tomatoes, mushrooms, tea, and coffee – increased by more than 20%.

The cost of a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs in the UK soared 33% year-on-year, the latest figures showed. Tomatoes rose 6.4% last month as it became too expensive to grow vegetables in energy-intensive greenhouses due to skyrocketing electricity bills. Some supermarkets have even started limiting the sales of certain products per person, due to supply shortages.

“Households continued to be squeezed by inflation driven by food prices and household bills,” the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, Helen Dickinson said, adding that a weaker pound has “made importing products such as vegetables from Europe more expensive.”

According to the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) prices in supermarkets across the country are growing at their fastest pace since at least 2005, forcing families to switch from mid-market to discount stores.

Britain is in the grip of its worst inflation in a generation. Consumer prices jumped to 10.4% last month – exceeding the 9.9% consensus forecast among economists – up from 10.1% in January, placing further pressure on cash-strapped households.

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