UK Grocery Price Report: August 2026
The headline: prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages in the UK rose 1.3% in the 12 months to August 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics. That is unchanged from July 2026, and the ONS notes the rate was last lower in September 2021. Food made its smallest contribution to overall inflation since September 2021.
Overall UK CPI inflation was 3.1% year over year in August 2026, up from 2.9% in July, but the pressure came from transport, not food: motor fuels rose 23.0% year over year. This report covers the food detail. September 2026 figures are published on 21 October 2026, and our next UK report will use them.
The food categories, item by item
Fish is the outlier at the top: up 6.6% year over year in August 2026, with a further 0.3% rise in the month. No other food class is close.
Food products not elsewhere classified rose 2.8%. Fruit rose 2.2% and vegetables including potatoes rose 2.1%, with vegetables also posting the largest monthly rise of any food class, up 1.6% in August alone.
Bread and cereals rose 1.3%, matching the overall food rate. Sugar, jam, syrups, chocolate and confectionery rose just 0.6%, a dramatic fall from the 11.9% rate of October 2025; the ONS attributes the drop principally to chocolate confectionery prices.
Meat was almost flat: up 0.1% year over year, and down 0.1% in the month. The ONS notes meat prices fell slightly in August 2026 where they had risen a year ago.
Two classes are cheaper than a year ago. Oils and fats fell 2.8% year over year, and milk, cheese and eggs fell 0.2%. Coffee, tea and cocoa also fell 0.2%. Non-alcoholic beverages as a group rose 2.1%, pulled up by mineral waters, soft drinks and juices at 2.8%.
What this means for a weekly shop
A 1.3% annual food rate means the average basket costs about £1.30 more per £100 than a year ago. After several years of food inflation far above that, the weekly shop has stopped getting dramatically more expensive, even if nothing feels cheap.
The action is now in individual items rather than the whole basket. Fish at 6.6% and vegetables jumping 1.6% in a single month will show up on receipts long before the headline rate moves. Our UK staple tracker, linked below, prices the shelf-level version of this story every week.
One caution from the ONS itself: this release corrected a minor scanner-data classification error that affected some food and alcohol items from February to July 2026, by up to 0.2 percentage points at detailed levels. The ONS says headline and divisional rates were not affected.
How we read these numbers
All figures in this report are from the ONS bulletin Consumer price inflation, UK: August 2026 and its detailed reference tables, released 16 September 2026. CPI figures are index changes, not shelf prices: they describe the average change across the country, not the price in any one supermarket.
The ONS no longer publishes item-level food price quotes, so for actual shelf prices we check retailer listings ourselves every week. That is the tracker, linked below. When the September 2026 release lands on 21 October, we will publish the next monthly report and update the hub.
The national food rate is 1.3%, but your personal rate depends on your basket. Scan your receipts free (5 scans a month, no credit card) and see what your staples actually did this year.