Christmas Dinner Inflation
Christmas can be expensive, with the average UK household spending around £1,811.70 or 80% of the average monthly salary ahead of the big day. The costs can quickly add up, from buying decorations like garlands and lights to hang on your Christmas tree to presents and the all-important Christmas dinner.
But which supermarkets are the cheapest for your Christmas dinner shop, which will cost you the most, and how much have prices gone up?
We’ve looked into the cost of common Christmas dinner ingredients to feed an extended family of eight people, two parents, two children and four grandparents, in the UK’s biggest supermarkets* and compared them to data from last year to find out!
We’ve also looked at search data to find out which ingredients are the nation’s favourites.
*Lidl and Co-op Food were excluded from our findings due to limited data.
The priciest supermarkets to buy Christmas dinner ingredients from
1. Waitrose - Total cost: £87.23
Waitrose is the supermarket with the most expensive Christmas dinner ingredients, costing a whopping £87.23 for a Christmas dinner for eight people, £20 more expensive than the average. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive item is turkey, at £31.28. Pigs in blankets are also more than two and a half times more expensive than the cheapest supermarket, Aldi.
2. Sainsbury's - Total cost: £82.09
Up next is Sainsbury’s, with a total bill of £82.09, or £10.26 per head to feed eight people. The supermarket has the most expensive turkey at £40.50, nearly £10 more than Waitrose. Sainsbury's Christmas puddings will also set you back £18, twice as much as the next supermarket on the list, Asda.
3. Asda - Total cost: £60.23
Despite being £27 cheaper than Waitrose, Asda’s Christmas offering rounds out the top three with a total cost of £60.23 for an eight-person dinner. This is slightly less than the average across the supermarkets we looked at. The cheapest item on Asda’s list is gravy at just £0.50. However, it isn’t the most affordable overall, with Sainsbury’s gravy costing ten pence less.
The cheapest supermarkets to buy Christmas dinner ingredients from
1. Aldi - Total cost: £45.62
Aldi can be crowned the cheapest supermarket overall, costing nearly half the price of shopping at Waitrose and £18 less than the average cost to feed eight people. The supermarket has some of the lowest prices overall, especially down the vegetable aisle. A cauliflower from Aldi costs just £0.75, 2.5x cheaper than Waitrose. Parsnips are also £0.40 more affordable than the next cheapest supermarket, Tesco.
2. Tesco - Total cost: £54.68
Tesco takes second place with a total cost of £54.68 to cater for eight. The supermarket has the cheapest cranberry sauce on the list at £0.55 and the second cheapest Yorkshire puddings of the supermarkets we looked at at £0.46, only two pence more expensive than Sainsbury's. It also has the second cheapest Christmas puddings, at £6.50.
3. Morrisons - Total cost: £56.24
Next up is Morrisons. The supermarket has the third-cheapest mince pies and Brussels sprouts, at £2.90 and £1.90, respectively. Surprisingly, Morrisons is the second most expensive supermarket for Yorkshire puddings, with a pack of 12 costing £1.25. A Christmas dinner at Morrisons costs £8 less than the average cost of a Christmas dinner for eight.
The cheapest Christmas dinner available in 2024
1. Aldi - 10 ingredients
Aldi had the cheapest Christmas dinner ingredients of all the supermarkets we looked at. Two-thirds of its Christmas offering had the lowest prices for the minimum amount to feed eight people. Although, some supermarkets matched some of Aldi’s prices for parsnips, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. If you were to shop around, buying these ingredients at Aldi would account for £38.76 of the cost (£42.40) of the cheapest Christmas dinner.
2. Sainsbury's - 4 ingredients
Far behind Aldi, Sainsbury’s has four of the cheapest Christmas dinner ingredients to cater for eight people, earning second place. Despite its reputation as an expensive supermarket, Sainsbury’s price match policy means some products are the same price or cheaper than budget supermarkets like Aldi. Buying the cheapest ingredients Sainsbury’s offers would make up £3.11 of the £42.40 it costs to make the most affordable Christmas dinner for eight people overall.
3. Morrisons - 3 ingredients
Morrisons takes third place with three of the cheapest ingredients on the list. The supermarket has the cheapest carrots on the list at £0.53 to feed eight people. It also shares the cheapest prices for parsnips at £1.10 and cranberry sauce at £0.55 with Aldi.
The supermarkets with the biggest price increases for an eight-person Christmas dinner
1. Sainsbury's - 83.2% increase 2023-2024
Sainsbury’s tops the list of supermarkets with the biggest Christmas dinner price increase over the last 12 months. In 2023, the average Christmas dinner for eight people would set you back £44.81. This year it would cost £82.09, a rise of 83.2%.
2. Waitrose - 65.6% increase 2023-2024
Inflation and global food shortages have caused food prices to shoot up over the last 12 months, and Christmas dinner ingredients are no exception. Waitrose takes second place for its price increases, rising from £52.68 for an eight-person dinner in 2023 to £87.23, a 65.6% increase.
3. Asda - 62.7% increase 2023-2024
The rising cost of living has made Christmas a tough time for families to afford a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings for eight people. Asda takes third place with a 62.7% increase since last year. In 2023, a full Christmas dinner would cost £37.01, compared to £60.23 this year.
The most popular Christmas dinner ingredients
1. Yorkshire Puddings - 944,310 searches
Yorkshire puddings are the nation’s favourite part of Christmas dinner, clocking in at 944,310 searches. Before becoming a staple of Sunday roasts and Christmas dinners, the humble Yorkshire pudding first began as a cheap addition to make the meal go further, as meat was expensive. Yorkshire pudding recipes make up the bulk of the searches at 942,000 over the last three months of 2023.
2. Cranberry Sauce - 152,310 searches
Cranberry sauce takes second place. The condiment had 152,310 searches from October to December last year. Despite being a modern staple, cranberry sauce is a relatively recent addition to Christmas dinners. It’s thought to have been popularised by TV chef Delia Smith in the 1990s.
3. Brussels Sprouts - 130,290 searches
Brussels sprouts are up next. Britons eat more of the controversial vegetable than any other nation at Christmas, around 40,000 tonnes yearly. Sprouts are also considered a superfood. They contain more vitamin C than oranges and are packed full of antioxidants. Sprouts takes third place with 130,290 searches.
David Sumner, Sales Manager at Christmas Tree World, comments on the amount of food wasted at Christmas each year and shares his tips on reducing waste this Christmas:
“Christmas is a time for joy and celebration, spending time with your loved ones and indulging in plenty of presents, parties, and food. However, overindulgence often leads to perfectly good food being thrown out. The amount of waste produced at Christmas is 30% higher than the rest of the year. This includes over 160,000 tonnes of Christmas trees and 230,000 tonnes of food.
“Many of us tend to overspend when stocking up for Christmastime. 66% of Britons admit to overspending during the festive period, and a third admit to spending up to £100 extra on food in the run-up to Christmas. That’s an extra weekly food shop for the average family or a total of £444 million worth of discarded food. With the rising cost of living, this puts considerable financial pressure on families who might struggle to afford much-needed essentials.
“The food wasted over Christmastime also has a significant environmental impact. The energy needed to produce and transport food that will eventually end up in landfill, is estimated at 25 million tonnes of CO2. The greenhouse gas emissions don’t just end there. After being taken to landfill sites, wasted food is broken down by microorganisms which produce methane gas, another significant greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.”
Tips on reducing waste this Christmas
1. Plan your meals carefully
One of the most important ways to reduce your food waste this Christmas is through careful planning. Think back to last Christmas and try to remember what was thrown away. Did you overstock on the basics, buy too much of one thing, or cook something your family didn’t like?
If so, make a plan for what you’ll eat over the Christmas period and stick to it. This will prevent you from overspending in the supermarket and wasting money and food. Don't be tempted by too many supermarket offers either - while it might seem like you’re saving money, buying more food than necessary could result in more food waste.
2. Get creative
If you have leftovers from your festive meals, box them up and keep them in the fridge for later instead of throwing them away. You can use the leftovers for lunch the next day. Look online for recipe ideas using the leftovers you have available. Bubble and squeak and turkey curry are Boxing Day classics, or you could get creative with a turkey risotto or soups using leftover veg.
3. Freeze your leftovers
If you’re tired of all the festive fare, you could freeze your leftovers and come back to them later. Plenty of festive foods like turkey, pigs in blankets, and stuffing freeze well, so you can concentrate on using up those that don’t, like roasted veg. This will also give you more time to decide what to do with your frozen leftovers.
4. Donate your unused food
Christmas is a time of festive goodwill, so if you have unopened tins or packets of food you didn’t get around to eating, consider donating them to food banks. More people than ever are using food banks, and Christmas is their busiest time of year, so donations are much needed. If you choose to donate your excess food to a food bank, you’ll be reducing your food waste and helping those in need!
5. Consider Composting
If you already have a compost heap in your garden and only a few food scraps left after the festive period, add them in. Raw fruit and veg peelings make the perfect addition. You could even compost your turkey carcass, although it’s best to break it down into smaller pieces to help speed up decomposition. You can even use this compost to grow some of your own veg in time for Christmas next year, cutting down on your future Christmas food bills.
Methodology
Beginning with a list of common Christmas dinner ingredients, we used articles from Good Housekeeping to find the minimum amount to feed eight people.
We then recorded the price for the cheapest ingredient available on the websites of six high-street supermarkets for which data was available: Aldi, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco, and Waitrose.
Using this data, we then calculated the total cost of a Christmas dinner from each supermarket and the average cost overall. We also calculated the cheapest and most expensive Christmas dinners across all supermarkets using this data.
We used Statista data to calculate the percentage increase in the price of a Christmas dinner in each supermarket from 2023 to 2024.
We used Google Ads’ Keyword Planner to find the total number of searches for “[ingredient] Christmas dinner”, “[ingredient] Christmas recipe”, and “Christmas [ingredient] recipe” from October to December 2023.
Note: Lidl and Co-op Food were excluded from our findings due to a lack of available data for the full list of ingredients when the data was collected.
