The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) has stated that the rise in UK inflation was “anything but unexpected” to the trade body as it observes its meat and poultry inflation report.
UK inflation rose to 3.6% in June 2025, while UK food sales increased by 4.1% year-on-year against a growth of 1.8% in June 2024. UK total retail sales increased by 3.1% on the year, down 0.2% from June 2024. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also reported that UK inflation hit 3.6% in the year to June, with the 12-month inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages reaching 4.5%.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), attributed the strength of food sales to a rise in food inflation: “Retail sales heated up in June, with both food and non-food performing well. Food sales remained strong, though this was in-part driven by food inflation, which has risen steadily over the course of the year.”
Tony Goodger, head of communications at AIMS, commented: “Using the red meat supermarket price report from AHDB and our own weekly market monitoring of supermarket chicken prices, the month-on-month average price increased by 1.8%.
“Overall, beef rose by an average of 3.2% and, most notable among the cuts was lean beef mince, which increased by £0.82kg (9.15%), no doubt driven by the warm weather and BBQs. Standard mince nudged up by 4.6% (+£0.28kg) whilst sirloin and fillet steaks both saw increases in excess of £1.00 per kg.
“Looking at chicken, the ‘Aldi price match’ probably drove the price for chicken wings down as they exited June 5.5% cheaper than in May. However, and again probably down to the warm weather and BBQs, chicken breast portions (+6.7% / £0.49kg) and chicken thigh fillets (+5.1% / £0.42kg) showed the biggest moves.
“Year-on-year meat and poultry price inflation for June stands at 12.77%, with just pork (2.52%) below the ONS CPI inflation figure of 4.1%.”
“If the Government are serious about trying to get food inflation under control they must look at how some of their policies are impacting costs along the supply chain.”
Tony Goodger, AIMS
Goodger continued: “If the Government are serious about trying to get food inflation under control they must look at how some of their policies are impacting costs along the supply chain. Most notably labour costs, which are being driven up as a result of changes to immigration rules making it far harder to recruit skilled butchers to come and work in the UK, and we are expecting a further hit to production and processing in the poultry and egg sectors as a result of what we believe is a hurried change to rules on the catching and handling of poultry, which is again due from 22nd July.”
