A classic breakfast staple has risen in price (Image: Getty)
Brits have been slapped with a 40% price increase on a breakfast staple amid the Which? tracked the average cost of 12 brands of the morning favourite across six – Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose – in January and February 2025, and found that some had risen by up to £2 per 200g from the same period last year.
Revealing the soaring cost of instant coffee, it found the biggest hike was on a 200g jar of Nescafé Original – the UK’s top-selling coffee – which was £2.26 more expensive per jar at Ocado on average, at £7.91 compared to £5.65 at the same time in 2024. Across the five supermarkets where Nescafé Original was available, its cost jumped from £5.09 to £5.79 on average. The study found that half of the brands had risen by more than 10%, while 11 out of 12 instant coffees had risen by at least 8%.
Some brands of instant coffee had risen by up to 40 percent (Image: Getty)
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A 140g tin of Nescafé’s Azera Americano was up by £2 at , from £5.25 to £7.26, and across the six supermarkets it rose on average from £6.17 to £7.27 year-on-year.
At , L’Or’s Classique instant coffee rose to £7.14 from £5.59 last year for a 150g jar, while the average was 14% across all the supermarkets.
The last year following drought and heavy rainfall in Vietnam – the world’s largest producer.
Own-label instant coffee bucked the trend, with prices a marginal 3% cheaper, costing £3.25 on average in January 2024 compared to £3.15 at the same time in 2025.
The cheapest in the study was Asda’s Gold Roasted Coffee Instant Granules 200g, which was £2.42.
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A told Which?: “Like every manufacturer, we have seen significant increases in the cost of coffee, making it much more expensive to manufacture our products.
“As always, we continue to be more efficient and absorb increasing costs where possible, whilst maintaining the delicious taste that consumers know and love. Retail pricing is always at the sole discretion of individual retailers.”
An told Which?: “Despite commodity price increases, we’re doing all we can to keep prices low for our customers and offer the widest range of choice to suit all needs and budgets.
“We’ve reduced hundreds of prices through our Big Price Drops and continue to match the price of a like-for-like shop on over 10,000 products to Tesco.com as part of the Ocado Price Promise.”
The study was based on average January-February prices across six supermarkets, including promotions and loyalty discounts but not multibuys.