Why are food prices still so high?

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Last Modified: 17 Feb 2009
By: James Blake

A key measure of inflation hits its lowest level for nearly half a century. So why is the weekly shopping so expensive?

Economists had predicted a sharp drop in inflation, but the official figures revealed a surprisingly small fall.

On the government's preferred measure of inflation, the consumer price index, prices rose 3 per cent in January - that was just a small drop from December's rise of 3.1 per cent.

And the retail prices index, which includes housing costs, fell from 0.9 per cent to 0.1 per cent, taking Britain to the brink of deflation.