Prices of Hobnobs, Jaffa Cakes and more set to soar, biscuit maker announces

Prices could go up by as much as 5 per cent

Jaffa Cakes, Hobnobs and Penguins will go up in price, but Chocolate Digestives will remain unaffected (PA)

The price of some of the nation’s favourite biscuits are set to rise, customers have been warned.

McVitie’s, the biscuit company that makes Jaffa Cakes, Hobnobs and Penguins, said prices of some of their most popular products could increase by as much as 5 per cent to accommodate rising business costs and supply chain issues.

The firm, which is owned by Pladis Global, said Chocolate Digestives would be less affected.

To blame for the price increases are rising business costs, staff shortages and disruption caused by the Omicron variant.

Pladis’s UK managing director, David Murray, told the BBC: "Omicron disruption, absenteeism, and the rising cost of business going forward present a big challenge for us.

“At the end of the day, like in many other categories, it will flow through to higher prices.”

In particular, higher prices for ingredients such as cacao beans and wheat, have hit the business, as have higher labour costs

Mr Murray added: “We’ve dealt with substantial challenges in the past in the food industry – whether it’s natural disasters, inflation in the economic crisis.”

But, he said, what makes this time different is “the compression of the challenge, combined with the scale of some of them”.

Mr Murray said: “There’s a constant drumbeat of opportunity to reduce cost, but when it is at this scale of inflation, I think we’re going to struggle.”

The latest business survey by the Office for National Statistics in October found nearly a third (29 per cent) of companies have seen a higher-than-normal increase in the cost of materials, goods and services, with 10 per cent deciding to hike prices to accommodate this.

Nearly a quarter of those hiking prices (23 per cent) were retailers across the wholesale and consumer-facing sectors.

In May, Pladis announced the closure of one of its McVitie’s factories in Glasgow in 2022 with plans to move production to one of six cities in England.

The 96-year-old Tollcross factory first opened in 1925 and is today where Hobnobs and Rich Tea Biscuits are made.

Some 450 workers were given redundancy notices in June this year, despite attempts to keep the factory from closing.