Organic food sales have declined - while the cut-price grocer is booming.
Austerity Britain is here thanks to the credit crunch, the Guardian reports.
Citing several recent studies, the newspaper claimed that many Britons were making deep cuts in spending - and adopting a penny-pinching, make-do-and-mend attitude. Yesterday, various reports showed that new car sales have fallen to their lowest level for 42 years, that inflows to personal pension plans had fallen from £8 million to £7 million over the last year and that household savings are at their lowest level for over four decades.
Deepening the gloom was the release of new housing statistics from Halifax, which showed that the value of the average UK home had dropped by 12.7 percent over the past year. This is the sharpest annual decline measured since the lender began its index in 1983.
Beneficiaries of the downturn, which was brought on by the freeze in lending caused by the credit crunch last year, include discount retailers. Indeed, the "Aldi effect" appears to be strengthening, with sales at the cut-price grocer increasing by 20 percent annually.
By contrast, figures from the Guardian show that sales of organic food, which generally costs more than similar non-organic products, have dropped by around 20 percent. Upmarket food retailer Waitrose has also seen an annual sales rise of just 1.9 percent, well behind the double-digit food price rises that have been seen over the period.
