The latest figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) – NielsenIQ shop price index indicate a shift in the retail landscape, with a noticeable change in shop price movements.
Shop price inflation edged up to -0.1% on an annual basis in April 2025 – a slight increase from March’s -0.4%. This rate exceeds the three-month average deflation of -0.4%.
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In the non-food sector, deflation decelerated as prices fell at a slower pace of -1.4% year-on-year in April compared to -1.9% in March, outpacing the three-month average deflation of -1.8%.
Meanwhile, food prices experienced an uptick with inflation reaching 2.6% year-on-year in April, climbing from 2.4% in March and exceeding the three-month average inflation rate of 2.4%.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson stated: “The days of shop price deflation look numbered as food inflation rose to its highest in 11 months, and non-food deflation eased significantly. Everyday essentials including bread, meat and fish all increased prices on the month. This comes in the same month retailers face a mountain of new employment costs in the form of higher employer National Insurance contributions and increased NLW. [National Living Wage].
“Despite price competition heating up, retailers are unable to absorb the total impact of these £5bn of employment costs and the additional £2bn costs when the new packaging tax comes into effect in October. It is crucial that poor implementation of the upcoming Employment Rights Bill does not add further pressure to costs – pushing prices further up, and job numbers further down.”
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By GlobalDataFresh food inflation climbed to 1.8% year-on-year in April from 1.4% in March, again outpacing the three-month average of 1.5%.
Ambient food inflation remained steady at 3.7% year on year in April, consistent with the previous month’s growth and higher than the three-month average of 3.4%.
NielsenIQ retailer and business insight head Mike Watkins stated: “Shoppers continue to benefit from lower shop price inflation than a year ago, but prices are slowly rising across supply chains, so retailers will be looking at ways to mitigate this as far as possible. And whilst we expect consumers to remain cautious on discretionary spend, the late Easter will have helped to stimulate sales.”
