As food prices rise by around 24% on average, customers have changed their shopping habits to keep up with increased costs.
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00:00 Food prices in particular have risen the most when it comes to the cost of living crisis,
00:05 around 24% on average. How has that changed the spending habits of average families and
00:10 what can they do to mitigate these costs?
00:12 The challenge for families with the kinds of price increases we've been seeing is it's
00:17 not the prices of luxury goods or discretionary purchases that have increased, it's the price
00:23 of really basic things and that's disproportionately affected families on lower incomes. The cost
00:29 of energy of course surged and then came back to earth a bit, the costs of fuel and clothing,
00:34 the costs of food. And as you mentioned, if the costs of basic staples at the supermarket
00:41 - bread, milk, famously olive oil - increase in price, you can substitute a little bit
00:47 for cheaper goods or go to a cheaper supermarket, but you have to eat just in the same way you
00:52 have to heat your home. And the effect of that for families has been that many have
00:57 ended up in debt, record levels of debt. Not only debt to debt suppliers, credit card
01:03 companies and other things, but also debt to current suppliers. So energy suppliers
01:09 have seen record levels of debt where consumers just haven't been able to keep up with paying
01:13 their bills on time. And that will take months or years to unwind. So even if inflation has
01:20 now fallen to more manageable levels, consumer debt at these high levels will take many years
01:27 to pay back. What can consumers do? There's hacks, we know the hacks. You can shop at
01:32 the end of the day when supermarkets start to discount, you can buy own brand products
01:37 rather than big label products. I say you can shop at a cheaper supermarket, but let's
01:42 be honest, people who are hard up have been doing all those things and the reality is
01:46 that all of us have felt the pinch. We've had to wind back on more luxury food purchases
01:51 and frankly any luxuries at all. And so life is not going to get much easier for most families
01:57 in the UK even though inflation has come down.