Price inflation on food and non-alcoholic drinks sits at 1.8% for December compared to the equivalent figure of -1.1% from Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Christopher Clare, head of consulting & insight at Prestige Purchasing, said that when the two figures are compared, it quickly becomes obvious that foodservice is having to cope with price increases that the general public are not, or at least, are not yet.
He added: “The level of volatility currently being experienced is significant, driven by a perfect storm of key commodity challenges and political and economic uncertainty.
“The foodservice market typically reacts more quickly to the former given the market dynamics where the large number of individual customers have less influence on price changes being passed on.”
The Foodservice Price Index (FPI) is jointly produced by Prestige Purchasing and CGA Strategy using data drawn from over 50% of the foodservice market and consisting around 7.8m transactions in a typical month.