Region's organic food sales hit

The rise in inflation over the last year is hitting one industry in the eastern region very hard.

The official rate may be nearing 5% but food has gone up by nearly 14% in the last year.

Now players in the organic food industry, suppliers and producers, are saying their businesses are under threat.

One of the leading providers of organic vegetable boxes, Cambridge Organic Food Company, has lost a quarter of its regular customers, from 800 to 600.

"Good long-standing customers of ours are turning up and saying 'I'm sorry but we are having to economise' and our service is one of the ways they are doing it," a company spokesman told Look East business correspondent Richard Bond.

The gainers from the credit crunch are discount stores which are attracting new shoppers trying to economise with one Aldi manager describing it as the biggest shift in supermarket shopping habits in 20 years.

Source: BBC