LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - British food manufacturers reported the first drop in their production costs since 2016 in May as lower commodity and energy prices and cheaper shipping outweighed a jump in wage bills, a Lloyds Bank report showed on Tuesday.
"It will still take some time before we see the benefit in terms of shelf prices," said Annabel Finlay, a managing director at Lloyds Bank.
Food price inflation, as measured by Britain's Office for National Statistics, hit its highest since 1977 in April at 19.1% and only eased fractionally in May.
Last week Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, said food price inflation had peaked and it and others have said they are cutting the prices of some foodstuffs and freezing others.
The Lloyds Bank report is based on an analysis of S&P Purchasing Managers' Index data covering around 1,300 companies.
Persons:
Annabel Finlay, Andrew Bailey, David Milliken, William Schomberg
Organizations:
Lloyds Bank, Manufacturers, United Nations, Britain's, National Statistics, Tesco, Bank of England, P, Thomson
Locations:
British