Price of bread, biscuits and meat to soar due to global wheat shortage

The common loaf is set to soar in price as the global price of wheat hits a record high. Pizzas, pastries and Christmas cakes could prove to be a weightier purchase in the shopping basket as the price rose to just over $10 (£5) a bushel for the first time this week.

The rise was due to problems in producing enough wheat and followed a price rise of 6.3 per cent in Chicago last week, a fourth consecutive weekly gain.

Decreasing supplies were the cause of the hike, because of plummeting output in drought-stricken Australia and lower yields in the US and Argentina. All have caused headaches for food manufacturers around the world.

But they will hit consumers even harder, with common brands of biscuits and loaves of bread getting pricier on the family shop.

In the UK, Premier Foods, maker of Hovis, and Associated British Foods, which makes Kingsmill and Ryvita, have been forced to put up bread prices this year.

Companies including cereal makers Kellogg's, General Mills and cake-sellers Sara Lee have also been forced to raise prices to consumers.

Gloomy data from Argentina, where dry, hot weather has forced down wheat yields were the latest blow to the market, which saw wheat futures for March delivery rise by the Chicago Board of Trade's 30-cent daily limit to $10.095 a bushel.

But it is not just the carbohydrates on the shopping list which are set to make an assault on the grocery purse.

The wheat price, which has more than doubled in a year, also has a knock-on effect for other food prices as it drives up the price of livestock feed. That would make meat more expensive, and analysts say there could be worse to come for consumers.

"Global supply is really tight at this time," Tobin Gorey, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, told Bloomberg. "Saying there's a near-term top in the price is a very dangerous thing to do."

It is not just wheat and associated foods that have rocketed. Curries are now a pricier purchase as sharp rises in the price of basmati rice have also suffered in the UK as demand has rocketed. The wholesale cost of basmati has doubled in the past year.

Tilda, the biggest importer of rice into the UK, reckons prices will have to go up by a third to cover rising costs.