How much more your homemade pancake costs due to inflation

As households across the country celebrate Pancake Day, those who've already forked out for ingredients may have noticed they're not getting quite as much value for money as they used to.

The cost of living crisis has seen an overall rise in supermarket inflation, with a number of everyday staples going up in price. This in turn has made Shrove Tuesday more expensive for Britons, with data suggesting the average cost of traditional ingredients has risen by 7% in a year.

That's almost double the rate of inflation in the UK, which economists expect to have risen from 4.0% in December to 4.2% in January. While the rate of inflation is slowing, families are still feeling the pinch, with researchers suggesting food prices could keep on rising throughout 2024.

Using figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Yahoo News has tracked how the average price of pancake ingredients has changed over the past few years, with significant rises from early 2022.

Recommended reading

• NHS Issues Official Warning This Pancake Day (Huffpost UK)

• Lent 2024: when does it start and why do Christians observe it? (Evening Standard)

• UK wage growth slows but still beats inflation (Yahoo Finance UK)

Price of butter

The average price of a 250g block of butter stood at £1.78 as of February 2019, before rising considerably in 2022.

It peaked in February 2023 at £2.36, before dropping to £2.14 in December – the most up to date period available in the ONS's data, which is measured by Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation.

Last year Lurpak decided to reduce the weight of its blocks of butter to from 250g to 200g, which currently sell for £2.15 at Sainsburys. In July, supermarkets added security tags to 1kg packs of butter, which climbed to £9 in price, HuffPost UK reported.

Price of milk

As of February 2019, a pint of pasteurised milk cost shoppers 45 pence on average.

This remained pretty steady until the end of 2021, rising significantly throughout 2022 and peaking in February 2023 at 70 pence, ONS figures show.

The average price has started to ease slightly, but not by much, standing at 66 pence per pint in December 2023.

Price of sugar

A kilogram of granulated sugar would cost shoppers an average of 76 pence in February 2019, with the price hovering around that figure until the autumn of 2022.

It rose to 84 pence in October, reaching £1.06 in January 2023, and continued on its upward trend to £1.18 in December. The rise appears to be slowing, but it nonetheless still going up, according to the ONS.

Price of flour

The most crucial ingredient of any pancake has seen a more modest rise through the course of the cost of living crisis, though still a significant one.

A 1.5kg bag of self raising flour cost 68p on average in February 2019, dipping slightly during 2020, and then rising again from January 2022, ONS data shows.

As of December 2023, the average cost of one of these bags was 84p.

'A flipping crisis this Pancake Day'

The total cost of traditional ingredients used for pancake ingredients has risen by 7% in just one year – almost twice the rate of inflation – according to analysis by the Liberal Democrats.

The party's number crunching shows the price of self-raising flour rose by 13%, while the cost of sugar has soared by a fifth.

Families are likely to notice the classic toppings of lemon and sugar have become more pricey, with lemons up by 6% to 33 pence, according to the Lib Dems' analysis.

Bananas are up by 16%, from 94 pence to £1.09 per kilogram, while eggs have risen from £3.07 per dozen to £3.27.

Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, Wera Hobhouse, said: "The soaring cost of ingredients and popular toppings are creating a cost of flipping crisis this pancake day.

“It is very much out of the frying pan and into the fire for families across the country. Economic growth under this Conservative government is flatter than a pancake. They are out of touch, out of ideas, and should be kicked out of office."