Shop price inflation reached a new high in March amid warnings that soaring food costs are yet to peak.

Shop prices are now 8.9pc higher than they were a year ago, up from February’s 8.4pc increase, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC)-NielsenIQ index.

Overall food inflation accelerated to 15pc, up from 14.5pc last month, while the price of fresh food is now 17pc higher than last March – the highest rate on record.

5 things to start your day 

1) Early retirement has forced up inflation, says Andrew Bailey | Bank of England Governor warns that the shrinking workforce has pushed prices and interest rates higher

2) Binance threatened with US trading ban after alleged terror payments | Legal action against world’s biggest crypto trading company sparks 4pc drop in Bitcoin

3) Treasury abandons plans for NFT | Proposal to create a state-backed token will be kept ‘under review’

4) Unlock £50bn pension investments using post-Brexit freedoms, Treasury urged | Scrapping red tape could help plug a funding gap backing British business, Lord Mayor of London says

5) Wind power boom faces supply crunch amid parts shortage | Supply chain bottlenecks could stall developments in Europe and the US

What happened overnight 

Asian shares were mostly higher as investors got some relief from worries over troubled US banks with a planned takeover of failed Silicon Valley Bank.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 jumped 1.1pc to 7,036.20. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.4pc to 2,419.43. 

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose nearly 0.4pc to 19,644.68, while the Shanghai Composite inched up less than 0.1pc to 3,249.39.

However, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.1pc to 27,456.98. 

Wall Street was boosted by bank stocks which rose on renewed hopes that the turmoil in the sector will be contained following the buyout of Silicon Valley Bank.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6pc to 32,432.08, the S&P 500 gained 0.2pc to 3,977.53 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5pc to 11,768.84.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury climbed to around 3.54pc, while the interest rate-sensitive two-year jumped to 4.02pc. The inverted yield curve – where the short-term rate is higher than the long-term – continues to signal a downturn ahead.