diesel $8.88 a gallon here in the uk and Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's , are charging their shoppers 12 per cent more on average for a basket of 25 staple goods compared with last year. in house memo for the company i work for warns that it could get as high as 27% higher than last year and to ajust stock and order to reflect the expected switch to lower quality (own brand)goods from branded goods (heniz etc). from what i am seeing i think 27% is low ball. while crude oil prices may have dropped abit fuel duty has just been raised in the uk budget and is due for another duty increase in october.

Butter prices in Britain rose by 18% last month, while milk rose by 12%. A kilo of peas has gone up from £1.19 to £1.79 at Tesco, a dozen eggs at Sainsbury's has leapt from £1.62 to £2.35, while Asda has increased the price of its orange juice from 73p a litre to 88p.