Beer, bread and biscuits set to get more expensive due to relentless wet winter
The price of products made with wheat is expected to spike, putting the price of a pint at risk.
Bread, beer, and biscuits all now risk getting more expensive, which is truly devastating to all the comfort-eating, pub-loving, non-coeliacs out there.
It comes after an unusually wet winter and autumn meant farmers couldn’t sow their fields as planned, and then crops that did manage to get planted were ruined due to flooding.
Analysis showed that harvests in the UK could be reduced by almost a fifth this year, with the smaller amount still available likely to be sold for a premium.
Wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape could fall by four million tonnes compared to 2023 – a reduction of 17.5%, it indicated.
Compared to the yearly average between 2015 and 2023, it could be more than five million tonnes, or 21.2%, the analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit also suggests.
But wheat is set to be the worst hit, with the ECIU estimating a fall of more than a quarter – 26.5% – compared to 2023.
Colin Chappell, a farmer from Lincolnshire, said of the wet weather: ‘It’s had a massive impact on us.
‘We went through the winter with virtually nothing viable drilled, and while it’s now dry enough to plant some fields some of them are so bad I don’t think they’ll get drilled this year. The situation is very hit and miss.’
Last week, the head of Associated British Foods – one of the UK’s biggest breadmakers, which owns Kingsmill and Ryvita – warned of potentially higher prices if the reduction is not offset by larger harvests abroad.
Today’s new data was obtained by analysing analysed the crop area forecasts from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHBD) as well as Government yield data.
The warning comes after a win for biscuit lovers in the UK’s latest inflation figures, as they were among foods to see a drop in price.
Meat and crumpets were also cheaper, but it seems this help with the cost of living may have been a blip.
The most recent severe weather in the UK was only weeks ago, when Storm Kathleen led to widespread disruption and flooding.
The National Farmers’ Union recently warned that extreme weather becoming more frequent presents one of the biggest threats to UK food security.
Warmer wetter winters similar to this past year are expected to become more likely as the climate warms.
Tom Lancaster, Land analyst at ECIU, said: ‘To withstand the wetter winters that will come from climate change, farmers need more support.’
He said farmers will need to invest in their soils to help them withstand and recover from both floods and drought but he added: ‘Moving faster to net zero emissions is the only guaranteed way to limit these impacts and maintain our food security.’
William Kendall, an East Anglian farmer who turned Green & Blacks into a global chocolate brand, said: ‘Regenerative farming methods, when properly followed, greatly enhance the soil’s capacity to hold water and therefore prevent saturation and run-off at times of prolonged heavy rainfall.
‘Not only does this mean better crops, produced at a lower cost for the farmer, but it ensures that the chances of the flash flooding downstream we have seen this winter are greatly diminished.’
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