The Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced a major overhaul of its inflation measurement system on Tuesday.
Starting in March 2025, the agency will gather price data from over a billion grocery items each month, using supermarket scanner data.
This represents a significant expansion from the current method, which relies on price collectors to manually gather 25,000 prices per month.
The new system will cover approximately 50% of the grocery market and will provide the ONS with a far more comprehensive and accurate picture of price changes across a wider range of products.
By tracking prices across the entire month rather than on a single day, the ONS will also be able to better understand how consumers respond to price changes.
This latest initiative is part of the ONS's broader effort to modernise its data collection methods. Last year, the agency began using digital data to track all consumer train fares, and this year it expanded its coverage of second-hand car prices.
While the ONS will continue to use price collectors for smaller grocery shops and other outlets, the new system marks a significant step forward in the agency's ability to track inflation in the crucial grocery sector.
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