Other foodstuffs which have gone down sharply in price in the last year include poultry, fish, sugar, preserves, soft drinks and fruit.
The figures were revealed at the States’ Jersey Retail Price Index (RPI) meeting yesterday, showing that while overall inflation has gone up, prices across all categories are fluctuating.
The 1.5% RPI figure is the highest on Jersey since September 2014, when it was 1.9%.
Jersey’s RPI was measured by assessing 14 categories, involving 600 items from tobacco to alcohol, food to fuel, clothing to catering.
It is designed to give an accurate assessment of whether prices are going up and down and overall they have gone up in the last year, but only by a historically small 1.5%.
There has been a 7% drop in prices for domestic fuel – which encompasses electricity, gas, heating oil and coal. Of these, domestic heating oil has experienced the largest fall, having gone down by 13p a litre in the year.
Petrol has gone down by an average of 9p a litre in the last year, while diesel has had a similar fall, by 8p per litre. Despite those drops, the cost of care sales, both second hand and new, have gone up, by around 2% in the year.
On the downside, a number of categories have seen sharp rises. These include school fees, postal charges, telephone calls, window cleaning, gardening, red meat (beef, lamb, pork), cheese, eggs, potatoes, water, private and public sector rents, alcohol and cigarettes.
The largest increases have been seen in rents, which have gone up 4% year on year, the same percentage rise as alcohol and cigarettes. Also, newspapers and books have gone up by a whopping 11%, while gardening goods have increased by 4%.
Dr Duncan Gibaut, States’ Chief Statistician, said the current inflation rate of 1.5% was historically on the low side, bearing in mind in the last 16 years since the Millennium it has reached as high as 6.8% in September 2008. It’s lowest point was minus 0.6% in September 2009.
Dr Gibaut said: “While our RPI has gone up by 1.5% in the year, for the UK, the most accurate equivalent index shows a rise of 0.9%. Inflation is therefore around 0.6% higher in Jersey, compared to the UK. One reason for that is for general food prices, which have gone down in the UK, but have stayed at 0.0% in Jersey.”