Food Prices - The Shocking Truth (C4, 9pm, 18 March) didn’t get off to the most auspicious start as Jimmy Doherty posed the (seemingly inevitable in food documentaries) question: “Are we being ripped off by the supermarkets?” Fortunately, there was a second part: “Or are there more surprising things that are driving up the cost of our food?” And refreshingly, the emphasis was very much on the latter.

Doherty looked at four foods at the heart of the British diet: beef, bread, chocolate and rice - in a surprisingly intelligent analysis (compared with the dire Food Unwrapped, anyway) that covered everything from rising fuel prices and demand from Asia to the power of the financial markets, politics and, of course, the impact of the weather on our crops.

The weather was obviously a biggie, but as Doherty pointed out, while it may have decimated damaged the UK wheat harvest crop in 2012, there’s a deeper problem that could hit bread prices - many wheat-growing countries are draining their aquifers so rapidly, a water crisis is looming.

Politics have also played a part - India, for example, sent rice prices soaring overnight when it banned exports to protect domestic supply (and try to win an election). Then there are the three ‘fs’ of fuel, feed and fertiliser, which have pushed beef prices up, and the impact on cocoa of civil war in Ivory Coast, and Ghanaian farmers switching to more profitable crops despite soaring demand.

Needless to say, there was no mention of the supermarkets keeping a lid on inflation in recent months, but then again there was hardly any mention of the supermarkets at all - hopefully, even their critics will accept it’s important to hear about the wider global factors at play once in a while.

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