A four pence rise in the price of milk has sparked a supermarket battle of the bottles.
For while the cost of a four pint carton is at a 21 month high, discounters are set to cash in with the lowest prices.
Today, fresh, own label milk at Aldi, Lidl and Iceland was 95p compared with £1 at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose.
Asda was a penny cheaper at 99p for a four pint bottle after new figures revealed the average price had increased by 4.2% from 94p to 99p in a month.
According to data from analysts BrandView, supermarket milk has quietly increased between September and October to the most it has been since January 2015.
It found Asda was the last of the big four chains to raise the cost of four pints.
The increase follows a warning from Asda that the cost of living will “creep up as we head towards 2017” and comes as figures show prices for other staples like butter, margarine and cheese have also been rising steadily in the past two months.
Asda was the first of the major supermarkets to cut the price of four pints of milk to 89p at the start of 2015 with Aldi and Lidl following suit.
Morrisons also waded in but the price war was slammed by farmers who branded the cuts as “devaluing” milk.
And the National Farmers Union (NFU) claimed farmers were still facing a £200 million black hole caused by the aggressive cuts which made milk cheaper than a similar size bottle of water last summer.
NFU dairy board chairman Michael Oakes said he was at a loss to understand why milk prices had not risen more sharply.
He said: “With market indicators racing upwards in the UK and EU and our domestic milk production down 8% daily, I cannot understand what’s holding back farmgate milk prices to this degree.
“Yes we have seen price rises but they haven’t matched the massive increases at the wholesale .
It comes after the Mirror told how Typhoo boss Somnath Saha warned the price of a cuppa could soar as the cost of importing tea rises in the wake of the Brexit vote.
And there are further increases predicted as poor cashew and peanut harvests are expected to hit spreads like Peanut Butter and Nutella and a spud shortage is likely to send the cost of potatoes up while a poor exchange rate will hammer imported food prices.
Action groups and charities are warning that an expected raft of grocery price rises – blamed on Brexit – will plunge more families into food poverty.
Source: Mirror
Link: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/now-price-milk-rocketed-highest-9173738
