Brits face 8% food price rises in the supermarket this summer, the Environment Secretary declared today.
George Eustice told the Food and Drink Federation conference price hikes in foods like wheat due to the Russia-Ukraine war could lead to chicken being more expensive.
He told the Food and Drink Federation conference: "I know that the Institute of Grocery Distribution have done a piece of work that assesses that food price inflation here in the UK could rise to 6%, possibly 8%, over the summer.
“But it's also the case that it's very volatile, and dynamic situation."
After his speech he told PoliticsHome the war “shouldn't lead to a drop in supply”, but “it's likely that there's going to be a cost pressure there that's going to feed through the system”.
He added: "Speaking roughly, there are three or four very large poultry producers in this country.
“They have a situation where feed costs account for around half of their input costs, and they're seeing a cost pressure of around 20-30%.
“At some point, that's got to feed through the system".
It comes as Chancellor Rishi Sunak prepares to give his Spring Statement tomorrow, with rumours he will cut fuel duty or raise National Insurance thresholds so workers pay slightly less - at the same time as the tax rises.
Food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe warned earlier this month that the cost of living crisis could be fatal for some children.
The writer, who secured the return of cheaper lines of food to supermarkets after they were withdrawn, has warned inflation for the poorest families is even worse than official figures.
She told the Commons Work and Pensions Committee: “The CPI measures is an average across a household basket of goods that includes, in fact, legs of lamb, bottles of champagne, bedroom furniture.
“Nobody was looking at the basic range of baked beans, the 13p spaghetti, the 29p pasta.
“When those things quietly disappear from the shelves there is no real recourse for it. There is no record that they were ever there in the first place and that then makes it difficult to identify that a £20 a week food shop a few years ago gets probably about two-thirds of what you could get for that £20 now.
“That is not people deciding not to go to theatre and not have legs of lamb and bottles of champagne; that is people deciding, ‘We won’t eat on Tuesday and Thursday this week, or we’ll turn the heating off, or we’ll skip meals.’”
