Cost of living: Cheapest items in supermarkets up 60 per cent

The UK’s most squeezed households are seeing the price they have to pay for some of the cheapest food in the supermarket soaring by nearly two thirds, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The cheapest vegetable oil on supermarket shelves has jumped by 65 per cent.

Statisticians have collected more than a million prices from supermarket websites over the past year to compare the cost of the cheapest available produce.

It allows them to better understand the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on poorer households.

They said that the cheapest tea had risen in price by 46 per cent, chips rose 39 per cent, bread was up 38 per cent and biscuits up 34 per cent.

“While the recent spike in inflation began with energy prices, today’s fresh insights using a new innovative data source show they are now filtering through to other important items, with the cheapest price of some staple food items rising by around two thirds in the last year,” said national statistician Sir Ian Diamond.

Earlier this year, campaigner Jack Monroe called on the ONS to update the way it measures inflation to better understand what impact rising prices have on the poorest households.

Some items also decreased in price. Orange juice dropped 9 per cent, and minced beef was down 7 per cent.

The ONS also published separate data showing that 72 per cent of people with prepayment energy meters are finding it difficult to pay their bills.

“Figures from our near real-time survey of people show that while rises in food and energy costs are affecting many people across the country, those who are disabled, from certain ethnic minority backgrounds and renters are among those struggling the most,” Sir Ian said.

“With rises in the cost of living at the forefront of many people’s minds, our new, almost real time, data showing just how prices are changing and shining a light on how different groups are affected have never been more important.”