Stephen Robertson, British Retail Consortium Director General, said, “A fall in food inflation to 4% shows the highly competitive grocery market is keeping costs down for customers in the run-up to Christmas. There’s been no fundamental change in the upward pressure coming from higher costs for wheat and other commodities but stores are holding back the full force of these rises.

Thirty eight per cent of fast-moving consumer goods are currently on some form of offer, which is an all-time high. On non-food goods too, discounts and special offers have started well ahead of the traditional January sales, as the dip in overall shop inflation demonstrates.

“With the official measure of inflation now running at more than 3% for 8 consecutive months, a shop inflation figure of 2% is much lower. It’s soaring petrol and energy prices that are hitting households. Retailers don’t want to be adding to that burden.”