Food price inflation reached a 45-year high of 16.2% in the UK for the year ending October 2022.

With overall inflation increasing again to 11.1%, UK shoppers are faced with making hard choices when it comes to spending money.

The most vulnerable products in this type of environment are what are described as discretionary or what might be considered luxury purchases.

In practice, that means that a TV or car upgrade might be deferred and when it comes to food choices, the inclination is to choose cheaper cuts of meat or even trade out of the more expensive meats such as beef and lamb in favour of pork or chicken.

Consumer beef purchases

This is reflected in the latest Kantar data for retail beef purchases for both the 12- and 52-week period ending 30 October 2022.

It shows that for the preceding 12 weeks, retail customers bought 6.5% less beef, even though they spent 3.2% more. This reflects a 10.4% increase in prices.

It is an even more negative picture for the year ending 30 October, with volumes down 10.7% and the overall spend also down by 3.6%.

Within the different cuts of beef, there was a huge fall in purchases of roasts, which were down by over one quarter at 26.3%, while steak volumes were down 21.7%.

Mince volume was down 7.9% for the year ending 30 October, although there was a small increase (less than 1%) in the 12-week period to 30 October.

Lamb

Lamb is a more expensive meat than beef and is considered a special occasion rather than an everyday product.

Unsurprisingly, when consumer budgets are stretched, it comes under pressure and this is reflected in the Kantar data for both the 12- and 52-week periods.

Sales of lamb fell by both volume and value for both periods. In the most recent quarter, volume purchases were down by 18.6%, just slightly lower than the 19.1% for the year ending 30 October.

Consumer spend was also down, falling 9.9% for the 12-week period and 11.8% for the year ending 30 October.

The picture in Britain is generally replicated to a greater or lesser extent across Europe.

Incomes are squeezed because of inflation, especially in energy and fuel costs, but increasingly in food costs, as higher production costs are filtering through to the supermarket shelves.

This presents an additional challenge to the supply chain, though with beef prices in Ireland lagging behind much of Europe and the US, our beef offering should be more competitive than most.

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