15.2% against 7.9%: the gap in what food costs different British households
What happened
Every year, Defra publishes a report called Family Food. It is built from the Living Costs and Food Survey, in which a sample of UK households write down everything they buy to eat and drink for two weeks. The latest edition covers the financial year ending 2025. It was published on 17 September 2026 and corrected the following day. It is not a headline-grabbing document. It is a set of tables. But it quietly answers a question a lot of people have been asking each other in shop queues: is it just me, or is food taking a bigger bite than it used to? The answer depends enormously on how much money you have. An average UK household spent 10.9% of everything it spent on household food and non-alcoholic drink. For the poorest fifth of households, measured by income after adjusting for household size, that figure was 15.2%. For the richest fifth, it was 7.9%.
Why this matters
Everyone pays roughly the same price for a loaf of bread. What differs is what that loaf costs you as a share of everything you have. A household spending 15.2% of its budget on food has far less room to absorb anything else going wrong - a broken boiler, a rise in rent, a car that fails its MOT. Food is one of the few big costs people feel able to cut, so it is often the one that gives. That is where health comes in. The things that get dropped first are usually the fresh things: fruit, vegetables, fish. They cost more per calorie and they go off. Tinned, frozen and dried food last longer and stretch further. The report also shows how much has changed since the pandemic. In the financial year ending 2021, food took 14.4% of the average household budget and 18.3% for the poorest fifth. Both figures have come down. But the gap between the two groups has not closed.
What the evidence actually says
Here are the numbers, plainly. In the year ending 2025, people in the UK spent an average of £50.03 per person per week on all food and drink. Of that, £37.34 went on food brought into the home, and £12.69 went on eating out. In real terms - that is, after taking inflation out - total spending rose 2.7% on the year before. Eating out made up 25% of food spending and rose 9.2% in real terms. That is a strong recovery from the pandemic low of 8%, though still below the 32% recorded in the year ending 2020. Most things bought for the home fell. Only 7 of the 18 food categories went up. The biggest falls were sugar and preserves, down 8.2%, alcoholic drinks, down about 7%, and soft drinks, also down about 7%. The biggest rises were beverages, up 12%, fish, up 4.2%, and meat, up 3.8% to 880 grams per person per week. On fruit and vegetables: households bought 1,023 grams of vegetables per person per week, not counting potatoes, plus 540 grams of potatoes and 965 grams of fruit. It is worth doing the sum, carefully. A standard portion is 80 grams. Fruit and vegetables together come to about 1,988 grams per person per week, or roughly 284 grams a day - somewhere around three and a half portions. That is below five a day, but it is not a measure of what people ate. It counts what was brought into the home, so it leaves out fruit and veg eaten out or at school or work, and it includes anything that was thrown away. Treat it as a rough signal, not a verdict. One small detail stands out. Just 1% of the fresh fruit and vegetables entering UK homes came from free sources such as gardens and allotments - exactly the same as the year before.
Qurexa perspective
We are a Lincolnshire company that delivers prescriptions, supports people in taking their medicines, and delivers groceries. So we see a version of this report every week, in houses rather than in tables. The households that struggle most with food are very often the same households that struggle to get to a shop at all: people who have recently come out of hospital, people who do not drive, people in villages with one bus a day, carers who cannot leave someone alone for an hour. For them, the problem is not only the price. It is that the cheapest food is in the big shop out of town, and the expensive food is in the small shop they can walk to. We mention it here because it is easy to read a report like this as being about prices alone. Often it is about distance as much as money. If you are caring for someone who cannot get out, combining a grocery delivery with their repeat prescription delivery removes one journey from the week - and that is worth more to some families than any shopping tip.
Practical advice
None of this is about cooking from scratch every night. It is about getting more from what you already spend. Frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables count towards five a day. They are usually cheaper, they last, and frozen veg is frozen soon after picking, so the nutrition holds up well. Tinned fruit in juice rather than syrup, and tinned vegetables without added salt, are the ones to look for. Check the price per 100g on the shelf label rather than the price on the front. It is the only fair way to compare sizes and offers. If money is tight, the Healthy Start scheme gives a prepaid card for fruit, vegetables, pulses and milk to pregnant women and families with children under four who receive certain benefits. Many eligible families do not claim it. You can apply on the NHS Healthy Start website. Check whether your area has a community fridge, a pantry or a food club. These are not food banks and you do not need a referral for most of them. If you are on a special diet because of a health condition, diabetes for example, and cost is making it hard to follow, tell your GP or pharmacist. There is usually more flexibility in the advice than people assume.
What to know
Defra's Family Food report for the year ending 2025 shows the poorest fifth of UK households spending 15.2% of their budget on food and non-alcoholic drink, against 7.9% for the richest fifth. The average was 10.9%. Total food and drink spending came to £50.03 per person per week, with a quarter of it going on eating out, which rose 9.2% in real terms. Fruit and vegetable purchases work out at roughly three and a half portions per person per day - though that counts only what comes into the home, so the real figure eaten is somewhat different. The overall picture is of households buying a little less of most things and spending more when they eat out. The gap between rich and poor households, in how much of life goes on food, has barely moved. Sources: Defra, "Family Food FYE 2025", 17 September 2026 (updated 18 September 2026), https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-food-fye-2025/family-food-fye-2025 | The Grocer, "Government figures show massive slump in UK fruit and veg consumption", September 2026, https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/government-figures-show-massive-slump-in-uk-fruit-and-veg-consumption/705560.article | NHS, "Get help to buy food and milk (Healthy Start)", https://www.healthystart.nhs.uk/ This article is for general information and does not replace advice from a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.
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