The soaring cost of food

The soaring cost of food

"A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake," says the Economist.

Demonstrations over the prices of rice are occurring all over Asia and food riots in Haiti claimed the lives of six people earlier this week.

There is no sign yet of riots in Britain, but grocery prices are soaring, according to today's papers.

The Telegraph says many families will be spending £800 more on annual food bills this year. It quickly gets down to details.

"A kilo of Tesco garden peas has increased from £1.10 to £1.79, a dozen medium free-range eggs from Sainsbury's have climbed from £1.75 to £2.58, and a bag of fusilli pasta from Asda has almost doubled, from 37p to 67p."

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This all represents the highest rate of food inflation for a generation, the paper warns.

The Times also leads with the figures, taken from the grocery price-tracking website mysupermarket.co.uk.

"Era of cheap food ends as prices surge," it headlines, predicting steeper rises to come because of shortages in the commodity markets.

According to the Express, it is the "latest hammer blow to hard-pressed family budgets".

Blogger Irregular Apocalypse hopes the price rises will encourage opulent Britons to "eat less [and] grow your own veggies".

This is an edited and extended extract from the Wrap, guardian.co.uk's digest of the day's papers.