Supermarket sandwich prices set to soar, warns Greencore

The price of supermarket sandwiches is set to soar on the back of the minimum wage hike.

The UK’s largest sandwich maker Greencore revealed it will increase prices this April when the National Living Wage rises.

Greencore – which supplies most of the leading grocers with ready-to-eat sandwiches and sushi, including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and Co-op – said the wage increase will add an additional £30m to its costs.

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Greencore chief executive Dalton Philips told The Telegraph: “We’re hugely supportive [of wages rising], because if you can get wages moving again, that’s going to ultimately put more money in people’s pockets. But the reality is, on our wage bill, it is a material increase.”

He said: “Obviously you do everything you can to mitigate it by operational efficiencies and all the good work that all companies try. But at the end of the day, it’s £30m, and you can’t mitigate it all. And some of that does seep into price rises.”

Last year Philips revealed inflation had risen so high that price negotiations with supermarkets had become “strained”, leaving walking away as the only option.

Earlier this week the the finance director of Associated British Foods (ABF), which owns brands including Kingsmill, Ryvita and Silver Spoon, also warned wage rises will see prices fall slower than expected.

Eoin Tonge cautioned: “Labour inflation is going to keep inflation higher. You can’t get away from that. Food inflation will remain sticky because of labour inflation as well.”