The BBC is right. Agricultural cost increases have contributed to food inflation. But supermarkets like Tesco have used the inflation as cover to increase their profits further, known as greedflation. The cost of food has risen by 37% in five years across the board, but some essentials are up 69% since 2022. Meanwhile, Tesco’s operating profit has leapt from £1.8bn in 2020/21 to £3.1bn in 2024/25, an increase of 72%.

Greedflation

Unite has the figures for middleman supermarket profit increases even higher. Commenting on the rise, general secretary, Sharon Graham said:

Despite the rise in wholesale prices, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda still managed to increase their profits by an astonishing 97% in 2021. At the same time the 8 top UK food manufacturers made profits of £22.9 billion. Profiteering is happening right along the food supply chain and workers are paying the price. It’s more evidence that the British public are hostage to greedflation. It’s time our elected leaders and policy makers woke up to corporate greed and challenged it head on.

Greedflation: The prices are much higher than the increase in farming costs over the past five years, which the BBC focused on throughout. Straw costs for animals more than doubled largely due to drier weather caused by climate change (another reason to go vegetarian or not vote for climate deniers in Reform).

Also, electricity has increased by 50% and motor fuels by 38%. This could be curtailed through public ownership of energy, which would reduce prices for agriculture. 40% of a farm’s total costs can be attributed to energy. And when it comes to the food we eat everyday, over 60% is produced in the UK. The removal of corporate profit in the common essential of energy could mandate a national drop in food prices.

Automation

What could further reduce agriculture costs is automated farms. In China, there are unmanned farms with smart management systems, along with aerial and ground robots.

In the UK, the government could fund and provide automated farming services in exchange for a drop in prices.

There’s no point working hard on a farm for the sake of it. This is progress. As automation increases, there will need to be a form of a citizens dividend to make up for the jobs that will be lost.

Featured image via Jon Tyson / Unsplash

By James Wright

This post was originally published on Canary.