Food prices in the UK up more than a third in five years

Food prices in the UK increased by 4.3 percent in the 12 months to September. It's tightening the squeeze in a country where food prices have risen by more than a third in the past five years.

From farmers markets that dot the high streets of towns and cities across the country, to supermarkets and restaurants - the public are facing ever increasing costs, as CGTN was told by visitors to a food market in central London:

"Certainly in restaurants and cafes food's gone up quite noticeably I'd have to say," said one man. "In pubs now it's quite hard to get a main dish for under £20 [$26.67] actually – even quite basic food like fish and chips."

"I can't see it getting any better, and I really feel sorry for people with kids who have got to feed them," added one woman.

Economists say the price rises are down to a number of factors.

The cost of transporting food has gone up due to global pressures including tariff wars, not to mention actual wars leading to supply chain disruption.

A hot dry summer has led to poor yields, which farming unions have warned will push up prices further.

And many supermarkets have put their prices up after the UK government raised the minimum wage and employer tax contributions.

The government says it's doing all it can to try and help, including trying to ensure that children do not go hungry.

"We are expanding free school meals to half a million more children, backed up with an extra £1 billion [$1.33bn] of funding through the spending review," Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told Parliament. 

"I'm delighted that we now have 750 new free breakfast clubs, and that from April next year another 2,000 will open, reaching half a million more children, lifting children out of poverty and backing families."

But food bank use in the UK has more than doubled in the past decade.

Increasingly, working people are now relying on emergency food handouts, as wage rises fail to keep up with prices.

And economists are warning that prices will rise still further as the UK struggles to curb wider inflation.