Major food price rises are all but inevitable, the chief executive of Britain's biggest supermarket chain has admitted.

Tesco boss says cheap food era is over

Philip Clarke admits prices will rise as poll finds UK shoppers would pay more to back farmers

• Jay Rayner
• The Observer, Saturday 20 July 2013

The checkout at a Waitrose supermarket in Newmarket, Suffolk. British shoppers have become accustomed to low prices for food. Photograph: Kumar Sriskandan / Alamy/Alamy

 

 

Speaking exclusively to the Observer, Philip Clarke of Tesco, which was heavily implicated in the horsemeat scandal, said that rising global demand means the historic low prices to which British consumers have become used are now unsustainable.
"Over the long run I think food prices and the proportion of income spent on food may well be going up," he said. "Because of growing demand it is going to change. It is the basic law of supply and demand." The admission comes as a new poll, commissioned by the Prince's Countryside Fund to mark National Countryside Week beginning tomorrow, reveals that a majority of British consumers would be prepared to pay more for food if they knew the extra was going to farmers rather than to supermarket shareholders. The YouGov poll also indicates that more than 80% of consumers think it is important to buy British produce where possible as a way of showing support for the nation's farmers.



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