00:00It's more guilt because you don't want to raise prices but you have to to stay alive
00:04and so it's always, you're just stressed about it all the time.
00:07Higher energy bills have pushed inflation to its highest level in four months,
00:11with prices 2.9% higher in July than they were a year earlier.
00:16And here in Gillingham, Pup Planet is feeling the squeeze,
00:19with freezers running around the clock to keep its frozen dog food in stock.
00:23So these freezers can't be switched off at the end of every day.
00:26They need to keep on running in order to keep the meat frozen,
00:29which means every rise in energy bills, hits this business directly.
00:33It's an independent business trying to stay afloat as costs continue to rise.
00:38They've had to increase food prices by 13% since last August,
00:42as the shop uses 72 kilowatt hours of electricity every day,
00:47costing around £600 a month to keep the freezers running, the lights on and the shop cool.
00:53It's like another job just to look at those moving prices all the time.
00:58So even when your products kind of stay the same, it's all these extra little bits,
01:03and just that factoring them in, it's just, you have to constantly just check it all the time,
01:06and just make sure you can survive each month.
01:10Because when you start dividing the cost of electric to just the products that are using it,
01:15you can't, you just won't make any money on those products.
01:17So you've got to spread that cost against all products.
01:21So it's kind of a, yeah, so it sounds small, but it just keeps adding and adding.
01:27It's like a few pence here, a few pence there, on top of like suppliers that they have their own
01:31energy costs.
01:32Medway Council does offer a scheme which could help businesses install solar panels.
01:37For Pup Planet, that could save them around £250 a month.
01:41But the roof isn't structurally strong enough to support them, meaning that option isn't available.
01:47So for now, Pup Planet is left to absorb the rising costs,
01:50with the possibility of prices increasing further as energy bills continue to climb.
01:56Maisie Walker for KMTV, Gillingham.
