Food inflation held at 1.3%. Wholesale cabbage and cauliflower are up a third. Both are true

UK inflation rose to 3.5% in September, led by fuel

The Office for National Statistics published its September figures at 07:00 on 21 October. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 3.5% in the 12 months to September 2026, up from 3.1% in August. On a monthly basis prices rose 0.4%, against little change a year earlier. The ONS says it is the highest rate since October 2025.

Transport, particularly motor fuels, made the largest upward contribution. The ONS average petrol price rose 8.2p a litre between August and September, to 169.5p, the highest since August 2022. Diesel rose 10.7p, to 192.5p, the highest since July 2022. Motor fuel prices were 29.8% higher than a year earlier, against 23.0% in August. Restaurants and hotels pulled the other way, the largest partly offsetting downward contribution.

Core CPI, which leaves out energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, rose to 2.8% from 2.6%.

Food: 1.3% for the third month running, the lowest since 2021

The annual rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages was 1.3% in September, the same as in July and August. The ONS says it was last lower in September 2021, at 0.8%. Food prices fell 0.2% in the month, the same fall as in September 2025.

It has fallen for most of the year: 3.6% in January, 3.3% in February, 3.7% in March, 3.0% in April, 2.2% in May, 1.7% in June, then 1.3%. A year ago, in September 2025, it was 4.5%.

Inside the food basket, vegetables including potatoes rose to 2.5% from 2.1%, bread and cereals to 1.5% from 1.3%, and fruit eased to 1.9% from 2.2%. The ONS names tomatoes, cakes, tarts and sweet pies, other breakfast bakery products and potato crisps as pushing up, and beef, chocolate assortments and fizzy drinks as pulling down. None of the 11 food classes did much to move the headline rate.

The ONS also notes that organisations such as the Food and Drink Federation expect food inflation to arrive later and last longer, partly because squeezed household budgets, competition and retailer resistance have limited how much higher costs manufacturers can pass on. That is their expectation, not a measured figure.

Wholesale veg: dearer than a year ago, mostly because last autumn was cheap

Defra publishes the average of the most usual prices paid at the wholesale markets of England and Wales. These are wholesale prices, not shop prices. For the week of 12 October 2026 against the same week of 2025: white cabbage 70p a kg against 52p (+34.6%), cauliflower £1.33 a head against £1.00 (+33.0%), parsnips £1.44 a kg against £1.14 (+26.3%), brown onions 63p against 51p (+23.5%), carrots 62p against 52p (+19.2%) and swede 29p against 25p (+16.0%). Leeks were up 10.9%, butterhead lettuce 10.4% and Gala apples 4.1%. Conference pears were 12.3% cheaper, at £1.07 against £1.22.

Most of those rises are about last year rather than this autumn. Cabbage has sat at 70p or 71p a kg since the end of August, carrots at 61p or 62p, and swede at 29p since the end of August. Cauliflower swings week to week: £2.09 a head on 31 August, £1.06 on 28 September, £1.33 on 12 October.

Brown onions are the one line with a clear recent rise: 27p a kg on 20 July, 45p on 31 August, 59p on 28 September and 63p on 12 October, up 40% in six weeks. The full series, with the dates we sample, is on our harvest and food tracker.

Behind the farm gate: inputs cost more, farmers are not paid more overall

Defra's feed-grain prices for Great Britain show the cost side of meat, milk and eggs. In August, feed wheat averaged £197.95 a tonne, 17.9% more than a year earlier; feed barley £175.00, up 19.6% and 11.2% on July alone; soya bean meal £356.20, up 20.8%; oilseed rape £437.76, up 11.0%. These are animal-feed prices, not the wheat that goes into bread.

Defra's UK agricultural price indices for July point the same way on costs: fertilisers and soil improvers up 13.1% on a year earlier, energy and lubricants up 13.8%, and all farm inputs up 6.4%.

What farmers are paid is mixed. Farm-gate prices for fresh vegetables were 9.8% higher than a year earlier, but potatoes were 17.6% lower, and the index for all agricultural outputs was down 3.5%.

The weather behind it: dry ground and a small barley and oat harvest

Defra's provisional figures for England, published on 8 October, put spring barley production down 23.4% and oats down 29.4%, both the smallest since 2012. Wheat was up 0.8% on a higher yield from a smaller area, and oilseed rape up 43.5%. Final UK figures are due on 10 December. We covered it in England's smallest barley and oat harvest since 2012.

In the last ten days of September, 92.3% of the 65 lowland farmland points we sample across Great Britain were in a drought class on the European Drought Observatory's combined indicator, and 95.7% in England. On 19 October, 24 of the 28 COSMOS-UK soil-moisture sites in England read drier than normal. England's reservoirs were 54% full on 13 October against a long-term average of 75%, with 10 hosepipe bans in force.

What the figures can and cannot tell you

The official measure of what households pay for food is low and steady: 1.3%, the lowest since September 2021. Wholesale prices for several British vegetables are higher than a year ago, and some farm costs have risen. Both are true at once, because they measure different points in the chain.

Between the wholesale market and the shelf sit supermarket contracts, imports and retailers' own pricing, and our data does not see them. We cannot say how much of the wholesale rise will reach shop prices, or when. The thing worth watching is whether onions keep rising and whether feed costs show up in meat, milk and eggs.

For the Christmas question, see our check on Christmas shortage claims. If you want a calm buffer in the cupboard whatever prices do, how much food to store sets out what to keep in and how to rotate it.