Prices on supermarket shelves soar by up to 115% as choc, cheese and biscuits hiked – check the worst offenders
BASKET CASE Prices on supermarket shelves soar by up to 115% as choc, cheese and biscuits hiked – check the worst offenders
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SHOPPERS are suffering from soaring food prices with some supermarket staples doubling in cost in the last year, according to Which?.
Chocolate prices have jumped 17.5%, while biscuits are up by 10.1%.
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Which? tracked prices of 27,000 products across 20 popular food and drink categories at eight major supermarkets, including Aldi, Asda, Tesco, and Sainsbury's.
This comes as global cocoa prices have skyrocketed in recent months due to poor harvests caused by adverse weather in West Africa.
The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) reported a 43% jump in cocoa prices since 2022.
Dairy products are also contributing to rising grocery costs, with butters and spreads seeing a 9.4% increase and cheese rising by 4.3%, according to the data.
Which? also picked out the items with the largest price rises in the year to May 2025.
For example, Sainsbury's no-added sugar dark chocolate saw the biggest rise jumping by 115% from £1.25 to £2.68.
Meanwhile, Galaxy chocolate sponge cake bars (5-pack) at Tesco jumped from £1.49 to £2.75.
However, the price squeeze isn't confined to confectionery.
Everyday essentials are also pushing up weekly basket costs.
Lidl's Vermondo soy milk, for instance, increased by 68% from 51p to 85p, and Sainsbury's own-brand Stamford Street Co low-fat natural yoghurt climbed 57%, from 33p to 55p.
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Supermarkets and the British Retail Consortium (BRC) have warned that rising costs from minimum wage increases and higher National Insurance contributions are driving up prices.
Havir Dhillon, a BRC economist, said retailers are facing £5billion in extra costs, pushing food inflation higher, which could reach five per cent by the year's end.
He added that while retailers are working to keep prices low, further government-imposed costs could make it harder to control inflation on essential items.
Reena Sewraz, retail editor at Which? said: "It's always worrying when we see supermarket food prices going up because we know this will have a big impact on hard-pressed households who already spend a larger chunk of their budget on groceries.
"Our research shows that shopping at Aldi or Lidl if you have local branches and buying own-brand products are the surest way to keep down the cost of the weekly shop."
Aldi bagged the top spot as the UK's cheapest supermarket for a basket of everyday essentials in May - beating rivals Lidl, Tesco and Asda.
That's according to Which?, which regularly compares the price of a typical shop of 82 items across eight major UK supermarkets.
At Aldi, the shop came in at just £135.48 on average – the lowest of the lot.
Lidl followed closely behind, with a near-identical total of £135.79 if using a Lidl Plus loyalty card, or £135.82 without it.
This makes Lidl just 31p more expensive than Aldi.
The shopping list included branded and own-brand favourites such as Birds Eye peas, Hovis bread, milk and butter.
Special offers and loyalty card prices were factored in, but multibuy deals were excluded from the analysis.
Tesco customers using a Clubcard would have paid £150.26, while those without the loyalty scheme forked out a bit more at £152.35.
Sainsbury's shoppers with a Nectar card paid £151.82, while non-cardholders saw their shop rise to £155.59.
Waitrose proved to be the most expensive supermarket for the smaller shop.
Here, 82 items totalled to a massive £184.03 on average.
That's £48.55 more than Aldi, or 36% higher.
Which? also looked at prices for a bigger weekly shop of 198 items.
Aldi and Lidl weren't included in this comparison due to their smaller ranges.
Asda took the crown for that larger trolley, with the full list costing £485.79, which was over £10 cheaper than Tesco, where Clubcard holders paid £496.59.
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