Spiralling food prices have pushed the cost of a family's weekly shop up by nearly £1,100 a year, new figures reveal.

The price of staple groceries has risen by more than a fifth since July last year as food producers deal with with soaring wheat, rice and energy costs, figures from mysupermarket, the shopping comparison site show.

The cost of a loaf of white bread from Tesco has risen by 50 per cent to 72p in the past year while the price of a 1kg bag of basmati rice at Sainsbury's has risen by 110 per cent to £1.89.

The figures highlight the increasing strain on consumers. Despite a surge in high street sales in May as people replenished their summer wardrobes, like-for-like retail sales fell by 0.03 per cent in the three months to June, pushing the annual decrease to 0.4 per cent, according to figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Retail sales rose by 3.5 per cent in May but Stephen Robertson, director-general of the BRC, said that June's gloomy figures confirmed fears that, “May's modest sales growth was the start-of-summer blip”.

He said that the fall in sales came despite efforts by retailers to attract trade. “Retailers are doing what they can to reassure customers with some of the strongest discounts and promotions in decades,” he said.

Spending on clothes and shoes fell, although like-for-like sales of women's footwear rose slightly, bolstered by a demand for sandals and “dressy” shoes. Furniture sales fell at the fastest pace for three years as the lack of new homeowners hit trade. DIY and homeware retailers were also badly affected in what is traditionally a busy month.

Despite higher food prices, like-for-like sales of food and drink rose, although the BRC said this was partly because of suppressed sales in June last year, the wettest June on record.Retailers reported that more shoppers were opting for value ranges and special offers last month, while the drier weather also boosted sales of barbecue foods, ice-cream and soft drinks.

Total high street sales rose 2.1 per cent in June compared with last year, down from the 4.6 per cent growth in May.

The gloomy retail figures will heighten fears that the country could be heading for a recession - as two consecutive quarters of negative growth show.

Philip Shaw, an economist at Investec, said: “If sales are only held up by essential items such as food, this indicates a noticeable weakening in discretionary spending.

It also raises the prospect that once the good weather ends there could be further slowdown in overall retail sales. This will worry the Bank of England as retail sales account for about 30 per cent of household consumption, which accounts for two thirds of GDP.”

GDP, the measure of economic growth, rose by just 0.3 per cent in the first three months of the year, and economists now forecast that if the country avoids recession in the second half of the year it will be by only the narrowest of margins.

But hopes of a cut in interest rates by the Bank of England to boost the flagging economy are likely to be further dented by fears over inflation. Analysts predict that today's inflation figures will show that the consumer price index, the Bank's preferred measure of inflation, rose to 3.6 per cent in June, up from 3.3 per cent in May.

— Fears over inflation grew further yesterday as manufacturers raised their prices at the fastest pace for at least two decades. Factory gate prices rose by an annual rate of 10 per cent in June, up from 9.3 per cent in May, as manufacturers grappled with the biggest jump in the cost of their raw materials since 1986.

Input costs rose by 2.3 per cent in June, pushing the annual increase to 30.3 per cent, reflecting the spiralling costs of oil and commodities.

Core price inflation, which excludes food, beverages, tobacco and petrol, rose by 6.4 per cent in the year to June, up from 5.9 per cent, raising concerns that soaring oil prices may be causing second-round inflationary effects. This will pose an even deeper dilemma for the Bank of England.

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