Cost of Christmas dinner to leap by 20% as supermarket food prices rise, analysis suggests

Cost of popular festive items has increased more sharply than headline rate of food inflation, research finds

The average cost of Christmas dinner will rise by more than 20 per cent this year, according to analysis of major supermarkets’ food prices.

The soaring cost of living is squeezing many households’ budgets this festive season, and research by the retail analysis firm Assosia explores the extent to which rising prices will impact items typically adorning the dinner table on 25 December.

The firm compared the year-on-year rise in the price of multiple different items across a range of supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi click-and-collect.

It will cost an average of £30.03 to feed five people with a basic Christmas dinner comprising of a frozen medium-sized turkey, stuffing balls, Brussels sprouts, pork chipolatas roast potatoes, onion gravy and mince pies.

This contrasts with a cost of £24.67 for the same items 12 months ago, based on prices as of 29 November.

The largest price rise on the list was for chipolatas – typically used to make the festive favourite pigs in blankets – which were found to have soared by 42 per cent. However, the increase in the cost of premium chipolatas was less severe, at 15.4 per cent.

Except for Brussels sprouts, the cost of all of the items analysed had risen more sharply than the headline inflation rate, which rose to a 41-year high of 11.1 per cent in the 12 months to October, according to the Office for National Statistics.

They are also each higher than the record-high headline rate of food inflation, which was placed at 12.4 per cent by the British Retail Consortium this week, whose records began in 2005.

“Winter looks increasingly bleak as pressures on prices continue unabated,” said BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson.

She added: “While there are signs that cost pressures and price rises might start to ease in 2023, Christmas cheer will be dampened this year as households cut back on seasonal spending to prioritise the essentials.”

Shoppers were also warned this week of a “big, big shortage” of free-range turkeys this Christmas, with 600,000 having either died or been culled as a result of bird flu – roughly half of the number typically grown for the festive period, according to the British Poultry Council.

The cost of popular Christmas dinner items has risen sharply, research suggests (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

In total, up to nine million turkeys are typically grown for Christmas, but around a million have so far been lost to the country’s worst-ever avian influenza outbreak, the council’s chief executive Richard Griffiths told MPs.

Asked what that might mean for prices this Christmas, Mr Griffiths said: “I don’t know. That’s really a question for retailers. We don’t know how the gaps within retail are going to be filled at this point.”

The pork industry has also been hit by a series of cost increases in the past year, according to the British Meat Processors Association’s chief executive, Nick Allen – as the war in Ukraine pushes up the cost of energy and animal feed, and Brexit-related labour shortages see wages increase.

“I think you’re seeing less demand for the higher value products,” Mr Allen told the BBC. “The sort of things that, dare I say, have been titivated up and had quite a bit of value added to them.”