Nearly half of Britons have cut back on food spending as prices soar, official statistics show.

Some 49% of people surveyed by the Office for National Statistics said they had purchased less food than normal between 22 June and 3 July.

This was up from 8% of those polled last September.

Another 48% said they had been forced to spend more than usual on their food shopping.

Overall, 91% of 2,300 participants said their cost of living had gone up over the past month.

Nearly all said this was due to surging food costs (95%).

Other reasons given were skyrocketing energy bills (83%) and fuel prices (79%).

The most common step taken to deal with this was spending less on non-essentials (reported by 62% of people), using less energy at home (53%), cutting back on non-essential car journeys (46%) and shopping around more (38%).

The figures reinforce reports from British supermarkets that shoppers are under increasing financial pressure.

Sainsbury's said on Tuesday that its underlying quarterly sales had fallen by 4%.

Tesco, the biggest supermarket in the country, said customers were buying cheaper own-brand items and making smaller, more frequent trips.

Last week, the US bank Citi predicted that food price inflation would exceed 20% by early next year.

Inflation hit 9.1% in May and is forecast to reach 11% this autumn.