The price of pasta, tinned tomatoes and strawberry jam jumped last year as the cost of supermarket staples rose, new figures for the BBC suggest.

Overall, the price of a basket filled with 15 standard food items rose by £1.32, or 8%, in just one year.

Changes in the average cost of the food items at Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco were tracked by retail research firm Assosia.

Some items fell in price, with carrots and mild cheddar seeing small declines.

The same basket of food made up of items from the cheaper “value” ranges at the supermarkets recorded an overall fall in price, down 45p, or 4%. But within that, items such as pasta and vanilla ice cream saw rises of more than 6%.

Other items the firm tracked in the new research for BBC News included tortilla chips, fish fingers, honey, blueberries, carrots and lemons.

Although official figures suggest that the overall cost of living increased by 5.4% in the year to December, this number – known as the inflation rate – can mask some steep rises seen at the tills, especially on everyday items.

There are many factors that can make it difficult to track how prices are changing for households, such as promotions at supermarkets or a lack of availability of certain products.

Asda, for example, recently pledged to stock its budget ranges in all of its 581 supermarkets and online after complaints from anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe.

“Looking at food prices is a bit of a minefield”, says Kay Staniland, director at Assosia. Her company selected a snapshot of popular products that were comparable across the value and standard ranges.

“I think the figures show that retailers are trying to avoid the biggest increases to value lines as much as possible. But these value lines do make up a small part of total ranges. The standard mid-tier range is where the largest volume of sales come from,” she says.

Adam Leyland, editor of The Grocer magazine, also tracks a weekly basket of goods and how prices differ across the supermarket aisles. He says “we’re now in a ‘once in a generation’ moment for food inflation in the UK”.

“We’ve not seen anything like this since the financial crash in 2008. And this is just the start. It’s going to go on for two or two and a half years, probably as various costs and problems filter through into the system.”

Inflation is everywhere in the food supply chain, he says, from rising energy and labour costs to raw materials and packaging.

The supermarkets are now grappling with how much of these costs to pass on.

“The food market is incredibly competitive and if you put your prices up ahead of the competition, the shopper will notice. Right now, more than ever, price is the major focus for the shopper. And they will vote with their feet,” he says.