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Shoppers are being forced to cut down on the food items in their baskets as the cost of living crisis across the nation continues to worsen. The managing director of frozen food giant Iceland claimed customers have been forced to cap spending on essential produce at £40 as inflation rates have driven prices to rocket. The news comes as the Government continues debate surrounding an increased reliance on food banks within the UK as thousands of families struggle to cope with the added income strain.
Speaking to LBC, Iceland chief Richard Walker said: “It’s a reality, it’s a real problem.”
Mr Walker continued: “We are seeing units per basket go down, so that means that customers are controlling spend through basically putting less food into their baskets.
“As inflation hits, unfortunately, inevitably, we’re having to put up prices, as are all of our competitors.
“Customers are managing that by putting less items in their basket.
“We obviously work day and night to keep prices as low as possible but, given all of the inflationary pressures that we know about, that’s not always possible.”
The Bank of England recently announced that inflation within the UK had risen to 9% with additional warnings that the level of inflation could rise to 11% by the autumn.
Despite emergency measures introduced by the Chancellor in May to address the cost of living crisis, many families have continued to face severe fiscal hardship.
In May frozen food specialist Iceland announced it would offer discounts for shoppers over the age of 60 in an effort to combat fears of food poverty among the elderly population.
The measure appeared to reflect well on the supermarket chain as YouGov reported an improvement in general public opinion surrounding retailers.
Read more: Pensioner lets rip at Rishi for failing her in cost-of-living hell
Mr Walker added: “However, we have committed to do what we can, so we have a number of different schemes that we can talk about where we are trying to support our customers.
“We’re also hearing stories of customers at the till who are asking the cashier to tell them when it totals up to £40 and then they just leave the rest of the food in their trolley.
“So, I would say, for our customers especially, five million customers a week, they are really finding things tough at the moment and every penny counts.”
The strict budgeting observed by Iceland has also been echoed in concerned statements from other leading supermarket chains across the country.
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Ken Murphy, CEO of Tesco said: “Although difficult to separate from the significant impact of lapping last year’s lockdowns, we are seeing some early indications of changing customer behaviour as a result of the inflationary environment.”
“Customers are facing unprecedented increases in the cost of living and it is therefore even more important that we work with our supplier partners to mitigate as much inflation as possible.”
Grocery shopping data from Kantar suggests shoppers have been pushed towards budget supermarkets in an effort to stretch their cash as Aldi’s grocery market share has risen to its highest share to date of 9 percent in recent weeks.
Similarly, the Lidl grocery market share has risen from 5.8% in February 2020 to 6.9 percent as of May 2022.
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