This is how much your favourite brands have jumped in price in a year

Connor Parker
Updated ·3 min read
The price of Walkers have gone up by nearly 17%. (PA)
The price of Walkers is up by nearly 17%. (PA) (Kevin Britland)

The cost of living crisis has seen people turn away from household names to cheaper alternatives as seemingly everything on the shelves goes up in price.

But just how much have the UK's most popular brands gone up?

Yahoo has crunched the numbers based on market analysis by trolley.co.uk, looking at 10 of the most popular brands according to data collated by YouGov.

We found that McVite's, Walkers, Kit Kat, Hovis, Cadbury, Colgate, Heinz, Dettol and Vaseline have all seen their average price increase in the past 12 months.

The price of food and other supermarket staples has become the focus of political attention during the cost of living crisis in recent months.

With inflation slowly falling to its current figure of 8.7% food inflation remains at more than double that at 18.4%.

Read more: Shopping basket of 10 items that helps explain the soaring cost of food in simple terms

Heinz products have seen the sharpest increase, with their prices rising from £1.78 to £2.16 between June 2022 and June 2023.

Since June 2022 the 10 more popular branded items have increased by the following:

  • McVite's - 11.5%

  • Walkers - 16.9%

  • Kit Kat - 12.6%

  • Hovis - 12.8%

  • Cadbury - 8.1%

  • Colgate - 7.5%

  • Heinz - 21.3%

  • Dettol - 8.4%

  • Vaseline - 10%

The price of toothpaste has also been hit by the cost of living crisis, with Colgate products going up from an average of £3.59 to £3.86.

There was outrage recently at a Tesco in Birmingham when a 75ml tube of Colgate Max White Ultra whitening paste was put on sale for £10.

The price is the same on Tesco's website and it is more expensive at Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Ocado.

Read more: Cost of living: Experts warn 'it can't go on' as food bills set to surge by £1,000

Many of the key ingredients used by some of the UK's most popular brands, like oil for crisps and sugar for chocolate, have both seen their prices surge by almost 50% in the past year.

Although many of the UK's most popular brands have kept their price increases below average food inflation, within their own specific categories it's a mixed picture.

For example, Walkers crisps have gone up by 16.9%, while on average all crisps on sale have increased by 14.5%.

The price of sweets has increased by 16.7% while Kit Kat has gone up by 12.6%.

Bosses at UK supermarkets have denied they are profiteering from customers who have witnessed soaring increases in their food bills.

Executives from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons defended their actions to MPs on Tuesday amid scrutiny over behaviour by firms in the sector.

Supermarkets are under increasing pressure to hand down savings they are seeing on wholesale items to consumers, who have faced punishing food price inflation in recent months.

The UK’s competition regulator is currently investigating how price increases and decreases in food and fuel have been passed onto consumers.

In recent days several supermarkets have cut the price of several key goods.

Ocado dropped the price of four pints of its own-brand milk by 10p to £1.45 and two pints by 5p to £1.20.

Last week, M&S cut the price of 70 staple products by between 3% and 25%.

Morrisons, Britain’s fifth-largest supermarket group, also announced last week that it was cutting the prices of 47 products by an average of more than 25%.

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