Rubbish Check
Daily Mail Money · 1 September 2026
source“Shop prices rising at fastest pace in more than two years”
R2/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates Daily Mail Money's claim that shop prices are "rising at their fastest pace in more than two years" a 2/10 because the figure, a 1.5% BRC shop price index reading for August, the highest since February 2024, is exactly what the primary source reported, with only a minor omission of how it compares to the broader CPI.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The headline is a near-direct lift of the British Retail Consortium's own framing of its data, and the article discloses upfront that the BRC index is narrower than official inflation. The one gap is that it never states the comparison number: shop price inflation at 1.5% still sits well below headline CPI, which independent reporting places at 2.9% in July, a four-month high. That's a missing data point, not a distortion.
What actually happened
The British Retail Consortium's Shop Price Monitor showed prices up 1.5% year-on-year in August, the highest reading since February 2024. The rise was driven by both food and non-food categories, with BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson citing rising energy, commodity and input costs feeding through into shelf prices.
Key facts
- BRC shop price index: 1.5% in August, up from 0.9% in July, the highest since February 2024.
- Non-food inflation: 0.9% in August, up from 0.2% in July, also the highest since February 2024.
- Food inflation: 2.8% in August, up from 2.2% in July.
- The article itself flags that the BRC index is a narrower gauge than official inflation figures, which cover a wider basket of goods and services, while separate reporting on the same release notes the ONS CPI reading came in at a four-month high of 2.9% in July, well above the BRC figure.
- Ofgem's energy price cap rises 4% from October, with a further 9% hike forecast for January, as cited in the article.
What to watch for
- Watch whether the October energy cap rise and forecast January hike push BRC's non-food reading higher still, or whether retailers absorb costs into margins instead.
- The next CPI print will show whether the BRC's narrower measure and the broader official rate continue to diverge, or start converging, a comparison this piece never draws.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
