Asda boss warns food prices will soar even higher and Tories must do more to help

Food prices will soar even higher and stay high for the long term, the Tory chairman of Asda warned today.

Lord Stuart Rose demanded the government do more to help after ministers and the Bank of England were too slow to react to inflation.

And he predicted food prices will rise higher beyond a 6% hike already seen in shops in the last year.

Asked if the 6% rise in food prices could be outstripped, he replied: “They are going to go higher and they are going to stay high for quite some time, I fear.”

It comes after the head of Co-Op supermarkets warned “chicken could become as expensive as beef” for the first time in decades as feed prices rise.

Tory peer Lord Rose told the BBC ’s Sunday Morning “it’s going to be very hard” and “I see no quick solution to this”.

Lord Rose said Asda had “dropped and locked” prices of key goods, but warned Brits will need to make hard choices about what they do or don’t buy. “I will personally look at my own behaviour - what things I need and what things I don't need,” he said.

He added: “We have just got rid in the UK of Covid… and we’ve now got to deal with a new phenomenon which is new to many people which is inflation.

“We haven’t seen serious inflation in this country for 40-dd years. That inflation is now coupled with a slowing down of the economy and an … almost inevitable increase in interest rates, starting next week.”

Prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 5.9% on the year to March, ONS figures show.

The former chair of the Remain campaign said “I’m a Conservative but I’m not immune to criticising the government”.

Urging the Government to do more to tackle the spiralling crisis, he said: “The Government can't sort out all the problems but the Government can do a few things. It could talk to industry.

“It could talk to the food retailers to make sure that we are cutting out every extra cost."

Labour leader Keir Starmer called for a £600 cut in energy bills funded by a one-off tax on oil and gas super profits to help families.

He said the cost of living has been the "number one issue" on the doorstep while campaigning for the local elections, adding that the Conservatives have said "absolutely nothing" about it.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng today did not rule out Labour’s idea of a windfall tax on oil and gas profits - but said it would be "arbitrary and unexpected".

While sunflower oil, wheat and oil prices will “spike” temporarily, “there’s a knock-on effect for all raw materials”, Lord Rose said.

And he said soaring inflation took “10 years to eradicate” last time.

Sunflower oil, wheat and oil prices have been affected by the war in Ukraine.

He added: "We don't know what will happen to gas prices and whatever else and clearly that will be dictated by however long this war goes on for, but I am afraid there is knock-on effect for all raw materials.

"There is going to be a new level of costs for these raw materials and they won't go down. It is a new high and that is something that people are going to have to accommodate.

"What we are now going to have to think about is, is that going to have a long-term effect on inflation because then will we have a wage spiral, or won't we?

"The converse side of that is we could end up, if we have no growth in the business, having stagflation.

"They are both evil and the Government has got a very difficult and tricky road to navigate."

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