Popular ice cream prices soar
Tucking into an ice cream is as much a sign of summer as paddling pools and deck chairs, but your favourite frozen treat might cost more than you're expecting this year.
Here we reveal how much some popular branded ice creams have leapt in price since July 2022 – including Cornetto, Fab, Feast and Solero.
How much have popular ice creams gone up in price?
Annual grocery price inflation currently stands at 1.6%, according to market analyst Kantar. But that figure disguises the huge increase in the price of many food and drink products in the past two years.
We looked at how much the prices of popular branded ice creams had changed over this time period at the UK's biggest supermarkets and found rises of up to 38%, including:
- Cornetto strawberry ice cream cones x 6 (540ml) from £2.57 to £3.55 – up 38%
- Cornetto classic cone x 6 (540ml) from £2.57 to £3.48 – up 35%
- Solero exotic ice cream lollies x 3 (270ml) from £2.03 to £2.75 – up 35%
- Feast chocolate ice creams x 4 (360ml) from £2.42 to £3.11 – up 29%
- Fab strawberry fruity lollies ice cream x 6 (340ml) from £1.97 to £2.43 – up 23%
- Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles lollies x 4 (260ml) from £2 to £2.43 – up 22%
- Rowntree's watermelon lollies x 4 (292ml) from £2.03 to £2.47 – up 22%.
We did find one big-brand item that had gone down in price, albeit by a measly 2%: Magnum double gold caramel billionaire x 3 (255ml) dropped from £3.72 to £3.63.
All prices were averages across the major supermarkets the products were available in for the two months to July 8 2024 compared with the same period two years earlier, and include regular discounts but not multibuys or loyalty prices.
- Find out more: which is the cheapest supermarket?
Why have some ice cream prices risen so fast?
Inflation on ice creams and ice lollies peaked at 24.3% in March 2023, according to industry experts from Mintel.
Rising prices in raw ingredients such as milk and sugar combined with high energy and transportation costs have contributed to price increases.
But the ice cream market is a fickle one, and prices are influenced by many other factors too. While the heatwave in 2022 led to shoppers buying more ice cream, last year poor weather and a squeeze on household finances hit the volume of ice cream sold (although price increases meant the value of sales actually increased).
Shoppers are also increasingly switching to own label rather than branded ice creams.
What about food inflation generally?
The Which? food inflation tracker shows that the prices of soft drinks and juices are rising faster than any other type of supermarket groceries.
We analyse the prices of around 26,000 food and drink items at eight major supermarkets every three months to see how different products are being affected.
Energy drinks had the highest average annual inflation at 6.6%, followed by bottled water at 6.2%, fizzy drinks at 5.5%, and juice drinks and smoothies at 5.3%, in the one month to the end of May 2024.
But the good news for shoppers is that some groceries are actually getting cheaper.
The average price of milk overall was 0.8% cheaper in May 2024 than in May 2023. And butters and spreads as an overall category cost 3.5% less.
