REUTERS/Michael Dalder
Uwe Kiehl of team Germany I breathes on the surface during a match at the Underwater ice hockey Championships in lake Weissensee in Austria February 17, 2013.
Analysts were expecting prices to stay flat year-on-year, with 0% inflation.
Core prices, which strip out the effects of volatile items like food and energy, were expected to rise by 1%.
In fact, core prices rose by just 0.8%, the lowest figure since 2001.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that the UK had some brief periods of deflation in the late 1950s and 1960, so it's been at least 55 years since such a low figure was recorded.