What to drop from your supermarket shop – Sugar, Olive Oil and sauces see largest price hikes

The latest analysis by finance experts, RIFT, has revealed which items are best left out of your shopping basket having seen the largest annual hikes in price, with the average cost of supermarket food items increasing by 11.6% in the last year alone – that’s £0.44p per item.

RIFT analysed the latest data from the Office for National Statistics on the average price of food and drink items and how this cost has changed since this time last year.

The research shows that supermarket food and drink items now cost an average of £4.25, up £0.44 on this time last year, an increase of 11.6%.

When it comes to the most expensive items in our basket, champagne tops the list with a corking average cost of £32.61 (75ml), followed by protein powder (£27.99 – 90g to 2kg) and Parmesan cheese (£20.86 per kg).

In comparison, the price of granulated white sugar sits at just £1.12 per kg. But while this may sound like a steal in comparison, white sugar has seen the steepest price increase of all food and drink items, up by 53.4% annually.

Olive Oil has also seen a considerable increase, now costing us 41.7% more, with cook-in-sauces sitting third in the table with a 33.6% jump in price.

Other items to make the top 10 include hard cheese (+31.3%), cucumber (31.3%), pickle (+30.5%), onions (+29.1%), frozen beef burgers (+29.1%), iceberg lettuce (+28.1%) and canned tomatoes (+27.3%).

In fact, almost every food item on the list has seen a price hike other than kiwi fruits (-5.7%), blueberries (-2.3%), spreadable butter (-0.9%) and honey (-0.4%).

However, it still remains cheaper to shop yourself, with additional analysis by RIFT showing that the average cost of a takeaway or restaurant item currently sits at £5.47, 29% more than the average cost of a supermarket item – despite seeing a more marginal year on year increase at 9%.

Takeaway burgers have seen the steepest price hike, now 14.6% more expensive than they were a year ago. Muffins and cakes are up 12.9%, with fish and chips (+12.8%), pastries (+12.6%) and pizza (+11.4%) also ranking within the top five takeaway items to have seen the sharpest cost increases.

Bradley Post, MD of RIFT, commented:

“The cost of almost everything in our supermarkets has climbed over the last year, from sugar to sweetcorn, gammon to grapefruits, and while these cost increases may seem marginal in some cases, they all add up when it comes to the weekly shop.

But by arming yourself with a little bit of knowledge, you can dodge the items to have seen the largest price hikes when dashing down the isles.

A few simple swaps and a little bit more leg work can help you achieve this. For example, making your own sauces or burgers will ensure you don’t pay above the odds for some of the frozen or pre-made items to have seen the largest cost increases.”