UK consumers absorbed 40% cumulative food price increases between 2020 and 2025.

By late 2025, that was finally easing and the outlook was cautiously optimistic.

Then, eleven days ago, oil surged 50%.

𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥:

The supply chain won't feel this yet.

Oil price shocks take 11–12 months to transmit into UK consumer food prices — through fertiliser costs, logistics contracts, packaging and energy tariffs. The shelf price today reflects decisions made a year ago.

But what gets decided over the next 90 days will determine the food inflation picture in early 2027.

📊 When Brent sustains above $80 for 3+ months, correlation with food CPI starts to be very high. Above $100 sustained, the historical food inflation response is +4–8 percentage points. We're currently at $88–$95 and counting.

⚠️ If this disruption runs 2–4 months, we could be looking at 6–8% food CPI by Q1 2027 — reversing most of the hard-won disinflation since 2023. However, as of right now, Futures markets think it's temporary.

⏱️ The indicator to watch isn't the food CPI release — it's the ONS Producer Price Index for food manufacturing inputs, which leads by 4–6 months.

How bad this gets depends almost entirely on what happens in the Strait of Hormuz over the next ninety days.