ONS launches shopping prices comparison tool

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has on Wednesday launched a new tool that helps to compare the average prices of over 450 items in the consumer prices inflation basket.

The agency said 95 per cent of these items have increased in price in the past year, with cucumbers (+52%), olive oil (+49%) and hard cheese (+44%) seeing the largest increases.

Over the year to March 2023, 60 grocery items in the shopping price comparison tool saw prices rise by 20 per cent or more, including five items that rose by 40 per cent and over.

The milk, cheese and eggs products category has recorded one of the highest annual inflation rates in groceries throughout the last year. All items in this category have seen an average increase in the last year, with hard cheese being the largest increase with an annual inflation rate of 44 per cent in the 12 months to March 2023.

The tool contains items ranging from bananas to nursery fees and aims to help improve the accessibility of the existing ONS data by easily allowing users to track average price trends.

The tool also lets users create their own bespoke basket of items and calculate the total average price change across these items, such as the cost of a roast dinner.

The ONS said the tool will be updated every month to reflect the latest inflation data and will be refreshed each March to accommodate the latest changes to the items in the inflation basket.