LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Prices at major British retailers rose at the fastest pace since February 2024 this month, led by a pick-up in prices for food as well as furniture and health and beauty products, industry figures showed on Tuesday.
The British Retail Consortium's shop price index showed a 1.5% annual rise in January, up from a 0.7% gain in December.
Food prices were 3.9% higher than a year earlier, up from a 3.3% rise in December and the biggest increase since October.
"Any suggestion that
inflation has peaked is simply not borne out by these figures," BRC Chief Executive Helen Dickinson said.
"Shop price inflation jumped this month due to high business energy costs and the hike to National Insurance continuing to feed through to prices. Meat, fish and fruit were particularly affected," she added.
Non-food prices rose by 0.3%, also the biggest annual rise since February 2024.
* Official consumer price inflation data for December -which covers a wider range of goods and services - rose to 3.4%from 3.2% * Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey expects CPI to fallclose to 2% by April or May, largely due to different one-offprice changes in regulated prices and taxes this year comparedto 2025 * CPI data showed food and non-alcoholic drink prices rose4.5% year-on-year, less than the 5.3% forecast by the BoE inNovember * April 2025 brought a 25 billion-pound ($34 billion)increase in employers' National Insurance payments, whichaffected most heavily sectors such as retail with morelower-paid, part-time staff * The BRC data is based on prices from January 1-7($1 = 0.7314 pounds)
(Reporting by David MillikenEditing by William Schomberg)
