Irish wholesale electricity prices were 76.9% higher year on year in August, while the wider energy and fuels index was 34.5% higher and diesel was roughly 25c per litre more expensive than a year earlier.

Yet food producer prices were only 0.6% higher and consumer food inflation was just 0.1%, meaning those huge energy increases have not yet translated proportionately into food prices.

It is mathematically impossible for energy and transport costs to remain this high without eventually crushing the price of the goods we rely on. This gap is exactly what we should be watching out for.  When these costs finally feed through production, distribution and retail, the resulting price jump will not be gradual, it will be a sudden and rapid correction. This is why we should,d be building our pantries now and networking, rather than waiting for those costs to reach the till.