{"id":433090,"date":"2026-02-18T23:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433090\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:21:08","slug":"hospitality-inflation-climbs-as-pressure-on-sector-persists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433090\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospitality inflation climbs as pressure on sector persists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tWednesday 18 February 2026 2:31 pm
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\tWednesday 18 February 2026 2:45 pm\n\t<\/p>\n

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\"London's\t\tRestaurant and hotel inflation increased to buck the wider trend\t<\/p>\n

Food and restaurant prices are rising at a faster rate than overall inflation, in a sign that cost and tax pressures on the hospitality sector are unlikely to ease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While headline Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation dropped to three per cent in the year to January 2025, food and restaurant inflation climbed from 3.8 to 4.1 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics<\/a> (ONS).<\/p>\n

While economists welcomed<\/a> the easing headline rate and pointed to a likely Bank of England interest rate cut, hospitality<\/a> figures have warned the sector\u2019s nightmare year in 2025 is still casting a shadow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Investec\u2019s note on Wednesday\u2019s inflation figures said the uplift in restaurant and hotel prices stopped overall CPI from dropping further.<\/p>\n

Allen Simpson, chief executive of trade body UK Hospitality, told City AM pubs, bars and restaurants will likely be forced to pass rising costs onto consumers despite easing overall inflation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWhile it\u2019s welcome that headline inflation has eased to 3%, today\u2019s figures show that hospitality continues to face stubbornly high cost pressures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite some easing in food and energy prices, businesses are still grappling with high food and drink inflation and the prospect of significant increases in business rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n

\t\t\tHospitality crisis pushed thousands of firms to shut in 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government wants hospitality to continue creating jobs and driving growth in communities across the UK, it must act to reduce costs, particularly by reforming business rates and ensuring wage policy is balanced with the sector\u2019s ability to absorb rising costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

While food inflation has consistently outpaced headline price growth, hospitality inflation has overtaken the headline rate for the first time since February last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Food prices drop but remain inflated<\/p>\n

Food inflation dropped significantly, falling from 4.5 to 3.6 per cent year-on-year between January and February.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But food price growth remains higher than the headline rate of inflation, driven by faster price growth for pasta (1.2 per cent), fish (1.2) and fruit (2.4).<\/p>\n

Bread and cereal (down 0.04 per cent), meat (0.02) and hot drinks (0.01) prices all rose at a slightly slower pace than in the year to January.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Matthew Allen, economics lecturer at the University of Salford, said: \u201cFood prices and hotel costs remain elevated, and these are everyday expenses that consumers feel most acutely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many households, particularly those on fixed incomes, the cost-of-living pressure hasn\u2019t disappeared, it has simply softened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPrivate sector bounces back but Reeves leaves hospitality reeling<\/a><\/p>\n

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\t\t\tPeople & Organisations\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday 18 February 2026 2:31 pm \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0 Wednesday 18 February 2026 2:45 pm Share Facebook Share on Facebook…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,24973,1294,3906,18982,1431,50119,50,111691,3783,56,158308,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-433090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-consumer-prices-index","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-hospitality","12":"tag-hotels","13":"tag-inflation","14":"tag-investec","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-office-for-national-statistics-ons","17":"tag-restaurants","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-ukhospitality","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}