Price hikes of more than 20% on hundreds of popular items are putting increasing pressure on household budgets, while Which? research suggests a decline in availability of supermarket discounts and budget ranges compared with two years ago as the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite.
The consumer champion, which analysed the prices of more than 21,000 groceries across two years, found that the price of 265 groceries shot up by more than a fifth over the past two years.
Across the 20 categories of groceries Which? looked at, fizzy drinks had the biggest average price rises, at 5.9%, followed by butters and spreads (4.9%), energy drinks (4.8%), and milk (4.6%).
Groceries with the lowest inflation included chocolate (1.4%), fresh fruit (1.6%), biscuits (1.8%), and vegetables (1.9%).
Which? has also found that over the past two years, there have been fewer discounts, smaller products at the same price, and limited availability of own-label budget ranges at different supermarkets.
The number of promotions has reduced across every one of the 20 categories of popular-selling groceries the consumer champion looked at – the number of discounts on bottled water was down 14.7%, vegetables down 11%, and energy drinks down 10.8%.
The size of the savings offered in promotions that did still happen had also been cut in three-quarters of the categories. This was most pronounced for butters and spreads, where the size of savings was reduced by 3.6% across the two-year period, followed by vegetables (3.5%), and crisps (2.9%).
The research also found that own-brand ranges had the lowest level of inflation at just 0.2%, standard ranges rose in price by 2.8%, and the highest inflation was seen in own-label premium ranges which saw 3.2% inflation over two years.
However, own-brand items were out of stock on three times as many days during the most recent three-month period, compared to two years previously. Own-brand cheese was out of stock the most of all the 20 products categories Which? looked at.
