The AIMS meat and poultry inflation tracker for the month of September shows that on averages prices fell slightly (-0.57%) across the month.
“Whilst beef continues to drive the overall inflation figure the upward movement was just 0.65% throughout September whilst lamb also edged up slightly, 0.3%” said Tony Goodger, head of communications at AIMS. “Interestingly the average price for pork cuts surveyed fell by 1.5% and chicken cuts, by 1.6%.”
“With the exception of whole chicken and chicken legs all prices across this category and pork were either unchanged during September or fell”, he said.
“It is important to remember that the price files for meat and poultry are based on UK supermarket pricing which is always highly competitive in September as retailers look to try to drive customer loyalty into the last quarter of the year. Many supermarkets also use September to preview Christmas, and all have their Halloween and Bonfire Night ranges on sale”.
“However, the twelve months to 30 September 2025 shows that meat and poultry inflation is at 16.4% with all categories increasing across the year”.
“Once again it is beef with it’s tight supply and continued demand that leads the way, up 34.13% with both lean mince (+48.7%) and standard (+38%) showing large price hikes. What stood out to me was the large year on year increase in beef steak which suggests that the retailers are managing to pull consumers away from the out-of-home market towards dining at home. Given the large numbers of households with air-fryers which can reliably cook steak to the consumer’s taste and the continued cost-of-living pressures on households I am firmly of the view that the price for beef steak and other grilling lines are likely to continue to show above annual inflation levels for some time to come”.
“Consumers looking to switch price protein should look no further than pork where the annual inflation is now below 2% with cuts such as belly slices and tenderloin lower in price then they were in September 2024”.
“Looking ahead to October, colder days, clocks changing, family occasions such as Halloween and Bonfire Night together with popular TV shows such as Strictly drawing in large audiences, are all likely to keep consumers dining at home and possibly treating themselves to the types of meals which they would traditionally have eaten out of the home meaning that I expect continued supermarket price led activity in the meat and poultry categories across the coming weeks”.