By Oisin Hanrahan

It’s unfortunately become a daily occurrence in our lives that we scan a product at the supermarket and look in shock at how much it now costs.

Chocolate, coffee, beef, butter and fruits like oranges are among the products that have seen the most eye-watering rises; all contributing to a rate of food price inflation that has remained stubbornly and unacceptably high.

It’s the result of a perfect storm of factors: crop diseases, bad weather, over-reliance on individual countries, tariffs, new packaging rules and other trade complexities.

The longer these prices remain high, the more experts and economists are beginning to ask a concerning question - is this the new normal? Will prices return to reasonable levels or have they become stuck?

The answer is that it needn’t be. We shouldn’t view high food prices as an inevitability, but nor should we view them coming down as one.

I work with supermarkets, brands and manufacturers across the UK, Europe and the US through my company Keychain. What it’s taught me is that the answer to this crisis lies in the most opaque aspect of the supermarket business model - the supply chain.

So let’s pull back the curtain to find out what’s not working.

Supermarkets........

© LBC