The numbers don't lie. There's been a lot of speculation that supermarkets have been profiteering from food price inflation. Here, in The Grocer/OC&C survey of the top 150 manufacturers (see pp4, 30-37), is strong evidence that they have. Of the £4.3bn in energy and raw material input costs that food and drink producers and manufacturers had to soak up, £3.5bn was passed down to the retailers... who passed on £3.7bn to consumers.

The inevitable conclusion is that retailers have pocketed £200m along the way. And indeed, in the period in question, the profit margins of the big five increased from 4.4% to 4.5%, while the margins of the manufacturers/producers fell by 1.2%, reflecting the £0.8bn hit they took along the way.

This is bound to be seized upon by the media. But the evidence needs to come with a health warning.

First, supermarkets aren't charities. If the supermarkets allowed food price inflation to dent profits, there would be hell to pay, as we have just seen with Marks & Spencer.

Second, as they point out, grocery retailers have had to absorb additional costs over that period, notably for energy and distribution. Margin gains have been achieved through cost-cutting and extra sales.

Finally, the increases referred to in the report relate to the two-year period from 2005 to 2007. While this coincides, intriguingly, with the timing of the Commission inquiry, it precedes a lot of cost inflation we have seen this year, so we can't tell to what extent the position has been reversed, or will be reversed, in 2008, as inflation finally catches up with them - though thus far it's been more Berlin Pact than all-out price war.