Workers having to pay more in company canteens

In the last three years it has become a lot more expensive to have lunch in a company canteen. Prices of simple lunch products rose by 24 percent between May 2007 and May 2010. This is a much larger price rise than the 11 percent increase for the hotel and restaurant sector as a whole; and certainly much larger than inflation in the same period, which was 5 percent.

Prices: total expenditure, hotel and restaurant sector and company canteens

Packed lunch cheaper

People who brought their own packed lunch to work were not affected by higher prices. Prices of shop-bought food were even slightly lower in May 2010 than in May 2009. Canteen prices rose by nearly 7 percent in the same period, while inflation was 1 percent. Restaurant meals cost nearly 2 percent more in May 2010 than twelve months previously. Consumers also paid about 2 percent more for fast-food and takeaway meals. In pubs and cafés prices were 3 percent higher.

Year-on-year change in consumer prices, May 2010

Femke de Leeuw