Families are having to spend almost £800 more on their annual grocery bills as the highest rate of food inflation for a generation drives up supermarket prices, research suggested yesterday.

The cost of a basket of 24 basic items such as tea bags, milk, cornflakes and pasta sauce at the three biggest stores has risen by 15 per cent over the past year.

A kilo of Tesco garden peas has increased from £1.10 to £1.79; a dozen medium free-range eggs from Sainsbury's has climbed from £1.75 to £2.58; and a bag of fusilli pasta from Asda has almost doubled, from 37p to 67p.

The increases suggest that supermarket food inflation is more than seven times the official rate of inflation.

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Any large family that spent £100 a week on its grocery shopping now has to spend an extra £780 a year to buy the same products.

The figures came as Gordon Brown called for urgent action to alleviate the effects of rising food price inflation, which one expert described yesterday as a "silent tsunami" threatening millions around the world with starvation.

Significant increases in the cost of producing basic ingredients such as cooking oil, rice and wheat, global shortages of key crops and soaring demand from China are the main factors behind the rise in wholesale food prices.

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