(Bloomberg) -- UK grocery price inflation edged up in October as British shoppers flocked to supermarkets in the busiest month since the pandemic.
Supermarket prices increased 2.3% in the four weeks ended Nov. 3 compared with a year earlier, up from a 2% rise in September, according to data from research firm Kantar.
Separate figures from the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday showed UK wage growth remaining higher than expected. Sticky wage and price pressures could support hawkish arguments for the Bank of England to take a slow approach to lowering interest rates.
Brits made 480 million grocery shopping trips during Kantar’s latest four-week period, making it the busiest month since March 2020 when people were preparing for the first national Covid lockdown.
Take-home sales in UK supermarkets rose by 2.3%.
Budget Fallout
The country’s two biggest supermarkets — Tesco Plc and J Sainsbury Plc — expanding their combined share of the market to 43.4%, the highest level since January.
Sainsbury’s was one of several UK retailers to complain last week that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ budget could stoke inflation. A sharp increase in payroll taxes for employers and a higher minimum wage could see costs being passed on to consumers.
Asda and Marks & Spencer Group Plc also said they were facing a huge increase in costs as a result of the budget.
Asda now holds 12.5% of the market, Kantar said, more than a percentage point down since the start of the year. Last week Asda reported that its like-for-like sales fell 4.8% in the three months ending Sept. 30.
Chairman Stuart Rose blamed the results on its failure to meet customers’ expectations in one of the world’s most competitive food markets.
(Corrects the rate of growth for take-home sales in fifth paragraph, after Kantar issued a correction.)
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