When Heinz first brought its tinned baked beans to the UK in 1886, they were sold in the exclusive London food store Fortnum & Mason for the princely sum of ninepence a can – about £3.57 in today’s money (we could have a longer discussion about purchasing power, but let’s not). Productivity growth reduced the cost of beans until, during the Baked Bean Wars of the 1990s, they were sold (as a loss leader) for 3p a can. Now, with some cans rising by 79 per cent in a year, the classic 415g tin of Heinz beans is, at £1.40, no longer synonymous with frugality.
The question is, is this the result of inflation – which rose to 10.4 per cent in February, driven by an 18 per cent rise in the cost of food – or the cause of it?
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