The wholesale-price based index of food articles dropped by 1.30% for the week ended December 12 from 19.95% a week ago.

Potato prices have risen more than 115% since last year whilst that of pulses has shot up by close to 42%. However, analysts say the months ahead are expected to witness food prices, which had shot up to a 10-year high last week, alleviate a little more.

“Prices are likely to stabilize. I expect food inflation to go down in January partially due to seasonal effect,” said HDFC Bank chief economist Abheek Barua.

Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia had said yesterday that the price circumstances would cool down in the upcoming months.

“The price built-up is on assumption post drought. Stocks of cereals are sufficient, and prices can be moderated; and it will be from January,” Ahluwalia said.

The Reserve Bank, though, regardless of small moderation in food prices, might still go ahead with a 50-basis point hike in Cash Reserve Ration (CRR), the money banks keep with the central bank, to tame inflationary expectations, Barua said.

The circumstances suggests dysfunction in distribution as retail prices have shot much over wholesale prices and import cannot be done without subsidy as worldwide prices are higher, Ahluwalia said.

“It’s a multifaceted condition and cannot be corrected with monetary policies … prices built up is on speculation post drought. Stocks of cereals are sufficient and prices can be moderated and it will be from January,” he said.

He said the rise in food prices was an immense subject of worry. “There were some increased expectations although for some products like vegetables the increase is extreme.”

Food inflation climbed to a 10-year high of close to 20 per cent throughout the first week of December, driven principally by higher prices of potato, other vegetables and pulses.

Prime Minister Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan had said that the Reserve Bank could decrease money supply and increase interest rate to tame the increasing prices of food articles.

A carbon footprint is the total set of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product.

From now, all Tesco own-label milk products will display the carbon footprint label as part of an on-going drive to help shoppers make “green” purchasing decisions.

Tesco is going to do this labeling on all the 500 products available in the supermarket. But this new labeling will not apply to organic milk because it has less greenhouse effect.

Tesco is already working towards for the reduction of these emissions along with the dairy industry and farmers through the Tesco Sustainable Dairy Group and also the Dairy Centre of Excellence at the University of Liverpool.

The Carbon Trust is working with Dairy UK to help the milk industry understand more about its carbon footprints as a route to greater reductions in emissions.

An individual, nation, or organization’s carbon footprint is measured by undertaking a GHG emissions assessment. Once the size of a carbon footprint is known, a strategy can be devised to reduce it.