THE saying “Cheap as chips” may have had its chips as spud prices soar.
Suppliers warn they are being hammered by shortages and poor harvests.
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A chippy tea has already jumped in price over the past couple of years on the back of tough harvests and leaping costs of frying oil and energy.
And potato firms have now warned they will have to increase prices again.
PG Chips, which supplies fish and chip shops across the North, has written to customers saying it is a “dire situation”.
In 2022, potato farmers struggled with heatwaves and costs.
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And a sodden autumn last year has meant that fields are full of rotten potatoes. Spud merchants have been trying to tackle shortages by importing from abroad but with little luck.
PG Chips says in its letter: “The potatoes on the continent are also very expensive for similar reasons to our own and by the time transport is added it makes them an unviable option.”
Company director Paul Graham told The Sun the price of a kilo sack had risen from £10 to £25 and “some in the industry are saying they could hit £30 by June”.
Many potato farmers had cut back on growing crops last year because of the jumping cost of fertiliser and fuel.
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He added: “Harvesting in 2023 was severely affected by the amount of rain we had throughout September, October and November”.
National Federation of Fish Friers president Andrew Crook said they “had already suffered the biggest prices rises since 1976” and were braced for more.
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Inflation is falling
SHOP price inflation fell to 2.5 per cent this month, the lowest rate since the invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
Food inflation was also down, tumbling to five per cent — a steep drop from the punishing 15.7 per cent last April.
Official figures out yesterday also revealed that lower energy prices reduced overall household costs from 8.3 per cent in September to five per cent in January.
The news will fuel hopes the Bank of England could soon cut interest rates.
