Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the rise in the price of basic foodstuffs reported in the Which? monthly food inflation tracker.

Food price inflation is being driven by a combination of inflationary factors across the food chain – these include increased farmgate prices influenced by global commodity prices and farm input costs such as fertilisers and animal feed. For manufacturers production costs have increased because of a combination of factors including a tight labour market increasing wages, energy price increases, fuel and packaging materials.