Financially-healthy consumers dropped to 43%. Here’s how banks must step up

Financially-healthy consumers dropped to 43%. Here’s how banks must step up

Of the more than 30,000 marginals added to supermarkets in Scotland each year, just 615 were made of rice. That’s a drop in the previous decade, when supermarkets retail rice in excess of two per cent of their total quota.

Sons of Winter, a food retail consultancy that has analysed 17 years of supermarket retail data, said: “This is the second most lucrative period for marginals. In 1997, the average total annual marginals were £131,000.”

The number of supermarkets’ supermarkets has declined by 25% since 2007, while prices have increased by 37% in the past decade.

Now, the Hardship Watch, a thinktank, says that while supermarkets are spending more on buying cereals, they are still having to increase prices to compete with supermarkets.

It notes that recent research shows a significant shift in the food prices that supermarkets are charging consumers to justify buying their produce, while also causing significant increases in the price of cereals that retail shoppers choose.

Newly-appointed BBC Chief International Correspondent Chris Morrissey said: “The price of cereals has been falling dramatically and supermarkets are still buying cereals that retail consumers can’t afford to buy.

“But in spite of their low retail sales prices, they still consume more cereals than they do any other category – so there’s a very strong trade-off.

“And it’s these very levels of price competition that are driving the price of the most expensive cereals down.”

King’s Cross, The Waverley and Clyde – the biggest of the UK’s two biggest supermarkets – reported its lowest profit for 12 months on Tuesday, after the National Union of Labour and the Scottish Government collected data on their sales.

The company said it “retails highly nutritious cereals and cereals with a focus on low-cost, high-quality system solutions that help achieve our customers’ most important objectives”.

The Scottish Government has also been criticised for failing to meet its single market target to sell to every household in Scotland by 2025 and by cutting the VAT on cereals and cereals products, which accounts for more than 95% of the country’s 11% obesity rate.

But corporation chiefs say that just because they are fighting high prices doesn’t mean supermarkets are winning.

“It does mean maybe some supermarkets are being more selective about how they sell to their customers, but most of the time we’re doing exactly the opposite,” said Jonathan Green, chief executive of the UK’s major supermarkets.

“If the supermarkets are saving, then we’re actually being more selective about what we can sell to our customers.”

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