At last week’s budget the Chancellor stated that although food price inflation has decreased, it is still too high at 4.9%.
“The AIMS meat and poultry inflation report for November shows that on average prices across beef, lamb, pork and chicken rose by just 0.41%” said Tony Goodger, head of communications for AIMS.
“Whilst beef remain slightly higher on the previous month at +0.35%, falls in lamb (-0.12%) and chicken (-1.23%) kept the overall inflation figure low”.
The one increase was pork which was rose by 2.58% driven by a 12.35% jump in the price of fillet.
“It is of note that several supermarkets and food magazines have recently published recipes for pork wellington encouraging consumers to switch from beef fillet which in turn could be leading to some supply-side issues”, Goodger said.
“In the twelve months to 29 November meat and poultry prices have risen by 14.29% which is far faster than overall food inflation with beef rising by £4.78kg (31.41%) with lean mince (+46.6%) and standard mince (+32.94%) leading the way”.
“With the exception of pork which is slightly cheaper than twelve months ago (-0.99%) both lamb (+6.8%) and chicken (+6.56%) continue to outpace overall food inflation”.
“December will, as always be an interesting month across the meat and poultry channel as supermarkets use highly competitive pricing strategies on roasting joints to try to encourage footfall and gain maximum share of Christmas consumer spend”.
“With the announcement of African Swine Fever in Spain I do expect to see fresh pork prices rise in the coming weeks as demand across the EU places pressure on the supply side” added Goodger.