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| Family food shop up '£15 a week' | Family food shop up '£15 a week' |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Steep increases in food costs have added £15 to a weekly supermarket shop for a family of four in the UK, new research suggests. | |
| Comparison website MySupermarket.co.uk says a basket of 24 staple items including tea bags, milk and eggs costs 15% more than it did 12 months ago. | |
| The findings are based on its price comparisons of certain everyday items at Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda. | The findings are based on its price comparisons of certain everyday items at Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda. |
| A white loaf was up more than 20%, from 54p to 65p, at Tesco and Sainsbury's. | |
| At all three supermarkets, the price of a dozen medium free-range eggs was up almost 50% to £2.58, from £1.75 a year earlier. | |
| A packet of fusilli pasta has nearly doubled, from 37p to 67p, as has the cost of butter, to 94p, from 58p. | |
| Other items in the basket of staple goods were milk, minced beef, peas, pasta sauce, jam, corn flakes and rice. | |
| The price of a number of fruit and vegetables bucked the trend. They were either static or had fallen from this time last April. | |
| But this is likely to offer little comfort to the government, which has been pushing for Britons to be healthier as the figures show an average 15% increase in the overall cost of this basket of food in the last year. | |
| This means that families spending £100 a week on average will be spending £780 a year more at a time when cash-strapped customers are also under increasing financial pressure from higher mortgage costs, petrol and energy prices. | |
| Spiralling food costs | Spiralling food costs |
| UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown met top-level food industry representatives and experts on Tuesday to consider ways to tackle the effects of international food price rises, which are threatening to drive an extra 100 million people worldwide into poverty. | UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown met top-level food industry representatives and experts on Tuesday to consider ways to tackle the effects of international food price rises, which are threatening to drive an extra 100 million people worldwide into poverty. |
| Products including rice, cooking oil and wheat have been scaling new peaks since the beginning of the year. | Products including rice, cooking oil and wheat have been scaling new peaks since the beginning of the year. |
| The increases have been driven by a number of supply problems, mainly caused by bad weather and the increase in the use of land to grow crops for biofuel. | The increases have been driven by a number of supply problems, mainly caused by bad weather and the increase in the use of land to grow crops for biofuel. |
| Those costs have been fed through to meat and dairy products as farmers pay more to feed their livestock. | Those costs have been fed through to meat and dairy products as farmers pay more to feed their livestock. |
| Johnny Stern, managing director of MySupermarket.co.uk, said: "The conclusion is that supermarkets are passing on a sizeable amount of the increased costs. | Johnny Stern, managing director of MySupermarket.co.uk, said: "The conclusion is that supermarkets are passing on a sizeable amount of the increased costs. |
| "The average customer cares about the products they need to put in their basket every week that they don't have any choice about," he added. | "The average customer cares about the products they need to put in their basket every week that they don't have any choice about," he added. |