Food prices in supermarkets are rising as retailers and manufacturers are passing on higher costs from poor crop harvests, owing to the early summer heatwave, and rising global prices of commodities such as coffee and orange juice.

The British Retail Consortium, the retailers’ trade body, says food prices in shops rose in July for the third successive month and that food prices have increased in five of the past seven months. This comes amid a general fall in shop prices, with non-food prices dropping 1.25 per cent in August.