London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2026

Prices of pasta, tea, chips and cooking oil soar

Prices of pasta, tea, chips and cooking oil soar

The price of pasta, tea, chips and cooking oil has soared, according to new data, with vegetable oil going up by 65% in a year.

Overall, the price of budget food in supermarkets rose by 17% in the year to September, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

It comes as a separate ONS report sheds light on the cost of living crisis.

Almost half of adults who pay energy bills and 30% paying rent or mortgages say these are difficult to afford.

Inflation - the rate at which prices are rising - is at a 40-year high.

Food prices drove the latest rise in living costs in September, along with energy bills and transport costs.

Earlier this year, anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe criticised the way that the rate of inflation was calculated stating that it "grossly" underestimates "the true cost of living crisis".

The official inflation data measures the prices of 700 goods, but since May this year the ONS has started releasing a new data set, which measures the change in price of 30 everyday grocery items across seven supermarkets.

This is the second time it has released this data.

It found sharp increases in the price of some household staples in supermarkets. Pasta prices rose by 60% in the year to September 2022, while tea prices went up by almost 50%.

Other everyday items such as chips, bread, biscuits and milk also recorded large increases.

But some other items fell in price during the period, including orange juice and beef mince.

The rise in the cost of groceries has been accelerated by the war in Ukraine, which has disrupted grain, oil and fertiliser supplies from the region.


"What we are seeing is that the price of low-cost goods is going up at the same rate as food across the piece with some real highlights... cooking oil and pasta, I would add tea, chips and bread to that - really going up and very, very few things going down at all," the chief executive of the UK Statistics Authority, Prof Sir Ian Diamond, told the BBC.

"We are really seeing that the squeeze on people who buy the lowest cost things is pretty hard at the moment."

When asked whether things are getting worse, he said: "I think things are tight. I think we are not seeing much of a getting worse at all but we are seeing things remaining really tight."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK Intensifies Arctic Security Engagement as Trump’s Greenland Rhetoric Fuels Allied Concern
Meghan Markle Could Return to the UK for the First Time in Nearly Four Years If Security Is Secured
Meghan Markle Likely to Return to UK Only if Harry Secures Official Security Cover
UAE Restricts Funding for Emiratis to Study in UK Amid Fears Over Muslim Brotherhood Influence
EU Seeks ‘Farage Clause’ in Brexit Reset Talks to Safeguard Long-Term Agreement Stability
Starmer’s Push to Rally Support for Action Against Elon Musk’s X Faces Setback as Canada Shuns Ban
UK Free School Meals Expansion Faces Political and Budgetary Delays
EU Seeks ‘Farage Clause’ in Brexit Reset Talks With Britain
Germany Hit by Major Airport Strikes Disrupting European Travel
Prince Harry Seeks King Charles’ Support to Open Invictus Games on UK Return
Washington Holds Back as Britain and France Signal Willingness to Deploy Troops in Postwar Ukraine
Elon Musk Accuses UK Government of Suppressing Free Speech as X Faces Potential Ban Over AI-Generated Content
Russia Deploys Hypersonic Missile in Strike on Ukraine
OpenAI and SoftBank Commit One Billion Dollars to Energy and Data Centre Supplier
UK Prime Minister Starmer Reaffirms Support for Danish Sovereignty Over Greenland Amid U.S. Pressure
UK Support Bolsters U.S. Seizure of Russian-Flagged Tanker Marinera in Atlantic Strike on Sanctions Evasion
The Claim That Maduro’s Capture and Trial Violate International Law Is Either Legally Illiterate—or Deliberately Deceptive
UK Data Watchdog Probes Elon Musk’s X Over AI-Generated Grok Images Amid Surge in Non-Consensual Outputs
Prince Harry to Return to UK for Court Hearing Without Plans to Meet King Charles III
UK Confirms Support for US Seizure of Russian-Flagged Oil Tanker in North Atlantic
Béla Tarr, Visionary Hungarian Filmmaker, Dies at Seventy After Long Illness
UK and France Pledge Military Hubs Across Ukraine in Post-Ceasefire Security Plan
Prince Harry Poised to Regain UK Security Cover, Clearing Way for Family Visits
UK Junk Food Advertising Ban Faces Major Loophole Allowing Brand-Only Promotions
Maduro’s Arrest Without The Hague Tests International Law—and Trump’s Willingness to Break It
German Intelligence Secretly Intercepted Obama’s Air Force One Communications
The U.S. State Department’s account in Persian: “President Trump is a man of action. If you didn’t know it until now, now you do—do not play games with President Trump.”
Fake Mainstream Media Double Standard: Elon Musk Versus Mamdani
HSBC Leads 2026 Mortgage Rate Cuts as UK Lending Costs Ease
US Joint Chiefs Chairman Outlines How Operation Absolute Resolve Was Carried Out in Venezuela
Starmer Welcomes End of Maduro Era While Stressing International Law and UK Non-Involvement
Korean Beauty Turns Viral Skincare Into a Global Export Engine
UK Confirms Non-Involvement in U.S. Military Action Against Venezuela
UK Terror Watchdog Calls for Australian-Style Social Media Ban to Protect Teenagers
Iranian Protests Intensify as Another Revolutionary Guard Member Is Killed and Khamenei Blames the West
Delta Force Identified as Unit Behind U.S. Operation That Captured Venezuela’s President
Europe’s Luxury Sanctions Punish Russian Consumers While a Sanctions-Circumvention Industry Thrives
Berkshire’s Buffett-to-Abel Transition Tests Whether a One-Man Trust Model Can Survive as a System
Fraud in European Central Bank: Lagarde’s Hidden Pay Premium Exposes a Transparency Crisis at the European Central Bank
Trump Announces U.S. Large-Scale Strike on Venezuela, Declares President Maduro and Wife Captured
Tesla Loses EV Crown to China’s BYD After Annual Deliveries Decline in 2025
UK Manufacturing Growth Reaches 15-Month Peak as Output and Orders Improve in December
Beijing Threatened to Scrap UK–China Trade Talks After British Minister’s Taiwan Visit
Newly Released Files Reveal Tony Blair Pressured Officials Over Iraq Death Case Involving UK Soldiers
Top Stocks and Themes to Watch in 2026 as Markets Enter New Year with Fresh Momentum
No UK Curfew Ordered as Deepfake TikTok Falsely Attributes Decree to Prime Minister Starmer
Europe’s Largest Defence Groups Set to Return Nearly Five Billion Dollars to Shareholders in Twenty Twenty-Five
Abu Dhabi ‘Capital of Capital’: How Abu Dhabi Rose as a Sovereign Wealth Power
Diamonds Are Powering a New Quantum Revolution
Trump Threatens Strikes Against Iran if Nuclear Programme Is Restarted
×