The price of own label sugar rose last week in Lidl and Tesco, The Grocer’s Key Value Items tracker showed. The price of sugar was 95p in both retailers on 5 December, up from 85p last week. In Lidl this was the third price increase since the beginning of November; in Tesco it was the fourth increase since the beginning of October. This brought Lidl and Tesco in line with Aldi and Sainsbury’s, which last week increased their prices to 95p from 85p. The price of sugar has increased in every single retailer over the last two months, with the average price going from 65p at the start of September to 94p on 5 December. Paul Stainton, partner at IPLC, pointed to the sugar commodity price which, according to the World Bank, rose from $0.2822 per kg (Nov 2019) to $0.4074 per kg (Nov 2022), an increase of 44%. “This increase in the raw material, along with huge increases in energy costs, has resulted in the wave of increases at retail level,” said Stainton.