Foodservice pricing falls but remains 2% up on last year
Despite foodservice pricing falling slightly in December, it remains almost 2% up on last year, according to procurement specialist Prestige Purchasing.
In contrast to consumer figures showing lower prices, pricing in the foodservice industry as measured by the Foodservice Price Index (FPI) is up 1.8% year-on-year and sits at 1.8% for December.
It suggests foodservice is having to cope with price increases that the general public are not, or at least are not yet.
Prices were down in line with the typical movement from November to December due to both increased sales of goods targeted specifically at the Christmas period and festive discounting.
An unsettled outlook for the next few months with particular volatility in both salad and fruit items imported from Spain and Italy is reported, as well as salmon, cream and butter prices soaring.
Christopher Clare, head of consulting and insight at Prestige Purchasing, said: "The level of volatility currently being experienced is significant, driven by a perfect storm of key commodity challenges and political and economic uncertainty.
"The foodservice market typically reacts more quickly to the former given the market dynamics where the large number of individual customers have less influence on price changes being passed on."
The FPI is jointly produced by Prestige Purchasing and CGA Strategy using data drawn from over 50% of the foodservice market and consisting around 7.8m transactions in a typical month.
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