Even the woman manning the till in Tesco cannot hide her surprise at how little \u20ac100 buys these days and marvels at how many people spend that and still take their shopping away in a single plastic bag. <\/p>\n
She leans over to a colleague and whispers: \u201cImagine being able to carry \u20ac100 worth of shopping in one hand \u2013 isn\u2019t that just mad?\u201d<\/p>\n
It is indeed mad but this exchange, witnessed by The Irish Times in recent weeks, is hardly surprising any more.<\/p>\n
Since early 2022 prices up and down supermarket aisles have been climbing. More than three years of price hikes have left many Irish families worse off by at least \u20ac3,500 annually.<\/p>\n
While prices are not increasing as much as they were at the height of the cost-of-living crisis in mid-2023, they are still climbing and sometimes climbing fast. <\/p>\n
News stories about supermarket prices are hardly new and have been running for as long as there have been supermarkets.<\/p>\n
They have rarely made for happy reading. <\/p>\n
In 2013 this newspaper noted that the price of a typical basket of groceries, including bread, milk, sugar and tea, had increased by more than 12 per cent in two years, with some products going up by almost 40 per cent.<\/p>\n
The report that year, from the Consumers\u2019 Association of Ireland (CAI), highlighted how a 1kg bag of sugar had gone from \u20ac1.05 to \u20ac1.45, while a packet of well-known sausages climbed to \u20ac1.85 from \u20ac1.55 and a box of branded tea that cost \u20ac3.24 in 2011 cost \u20ac3.78 two years later. <\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t know it then but those were the good old days. <\/p>\n
Fast forward to today and the sugar costs \u20ac2.35, the sausages \u20ac3.89 and the tea \u20ac7. Those three items that cost \u20ac13.24 this week cost less than half that price \u2013 just \u20ac5.84 \u2013 15 years ago. <\/p>\n
Figures published last month by retail analysts Worldpanel by Numerator suggest that grocery prices are just over 6 per cent higher than this time last year. While that is lower than the runaway inflation of 17 per cent recorded in the summer of 2023, the 6 per cent is on top all the other hikes of recent years.<\/p>\n
Worldpanel\u2019s figures are just one metric to measure grocery inflation. Others are scarcely more cheering. The most recent flash estimates from the Central Statistics Office<\/a> (CSO) suggests food prices are up by 4.2 per cent since this time last year. <\/p>\n And then there are first-hand accounts. Earlier this week we asked users of social media network X about their experiences at the supermarket tills. <\/p>\n \u201cIt seems everything is more expensive, but particularly meat (beef), coffee, dairy,\u201d said one respondent, James Ryan. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I find most infuriating with grocery shopping now is the variance in price from week to week of staples. It is quite the job to keep track of price increases.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeef and chicken are through the roof, soft drinks outside of \u2018deals\u2019 are also up. And it\u2019s every week. What was \u20ac6.99 last week becomes \u20ac7.99 this week,\u201d noted another, Sean Daly. <\/p>\n For her part, Judy Brady highlighted \u201cthe usual culprits: meat, butter, red sauce, brown sauce, sugar, tea, washing-up liquid, shampoo, I could go on and on.\u201d<\/p>\n TU Dublin<\/a> academic and retail analyst Damian O\u2019Reilly forecasts supermarket inflation will probably peak at about 3.5 per cent for the year, though he warns some staples are climbing much faster. <\/p>\n He does not anticipate any significant changes in 2026 and suggests prices will climb by a similar margin at the very least next year. <\/p>\n Higher energy costs, wages, climate change and geopolitical uncertainty along with the continuing war in Ukraine are all going to keep pushing prices higher. <\/p>\n [\u00a0Irish inflation climbs over 3% again on higher energy and food pricesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n O\u2019Reilly singles out red meat, butter, milk, chocolate and coffee as being key drivers of grocery inflation. He suggests that if those products were stripped out of a typical basket of goods, grocery inflation in Ireland over the past 12 months would be considerably lower.<\/p>\n CSO data certainly bears that out. The price of beef has climbed by almost 27 per cent and chocolate is up by around 23 per cent, while butter costs at least 18 per cent more now than it did last year. <\/p>\n But it is not just food. <\/p>\n The cost of health and motor insurance has climbed in recent months, adding hundreds of euro on to household bills, while petrol and diesel have also been edging up.<\/p>\n And then there are energy bills which have also been going in the wrong direction for quite some time. <\/p>\n This week it emerged that the Government cancelled the energy credits that softened the blow of spiralling gas and electricity prices in the wake of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in February 2022, even though civil servants suggested there was still a case to be made for them.<\/p>\n In the budgets leading up to the November 2024 general election, the Government included one-off energy credits totalling \u20ac1,100 over three years but in its first post-election budget it decided that the supports were unsustainable. <\/p>\n