Since the start of the cost-of-living crisis in mid-2021, UK food prices have risen by around 40%, far outpacing the roughly 30% increase in wages over the same period [1]. For families with children in the lowest income quintile, a healthy diet now requires spending around 70% of disposable income after housing costs, pushing basic nutritional security increasingly out of reach [2].
Our work at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has shown that much of this increase has been driven by climate change and volatile oil and gas prices. Together, these forces pushed household food bills up by an average of £605 over 2022 and 2023 [3]. More recently, five climate-impacted foods — butter, milk, beef, chocolate and coffee — have been responsible for much of the continued pressure on food inflation [4], accounting for 30-40% of inflation despite making up about 10% of the basket. The concentration of much of the inflationary pressure in a small group of foods also suggests that the higher minimum wage and higher business taxes are not significantly to blame either.
And there may be more to come. With another wave of inflation coming our way, driven by the US-Israel war on Iran, parts of the food industry are predicting that food prices will rise another 10% by December [5], meaning food prices will have grown by 50% in just over 5 years – almost four times faster than the 20 years it took for them to achieve the same milestone previously [10].
It is no surprise, then, that polling and focus groups — including recent work by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation [6] and Ipsos [11] — repeatedly show that food prices, the cost of living and economic security remain among the most politically salient issues for UK voters.
Shoppers feeling that prices are on a never-ending escalator upwards is borne out by the data. Analysis that we published last week shows that when food prices rise during major shocks, they tend to come down only slowly and partially afterwards, leaving households facing a higher grocery bill long after the original crisis has eased [7]. In other words, food prices rocket up but then drift down like feathers.
On average, shelf prices fall just 1% six months after a rise and 7% after two years. With wage growth weak since 2008, only around a third (35%) of the affordability shock unwinds after two years. Even when underlying energy and commodity costs fall, retail prices do not fully follow. Instead, the gap between core production costs and prices on the shelf appears to widen with each shock.
That should worry anyone concerned about living standards, as climate change and geopolitical instability is turning once-occasional disruptions into a near-constant feature of the food system.
How to make food more affordable in the face of all this? Broadly, there are three potential routes: stronger wage growth, stronger competition, and limiting shocks in the first place.
Wage growth and competition both have a role to play. Food became steadily more affordable in wage-adjusted terms between 1988 and 2008, helped by rising wages and a more stable global environment [7]. And from 2014, as Aldi and Lidl took market share from bigger players, food inflation turned negative for around 18 months [8]. Competition can put downward pressure on prices and help diversify supply chains – key for resilience; by contrast concentration – where there are a few big players in a market - may amplify shocks [9].
Stronger wage growth and competition would both help. But wage growth is proving difficult to deliver, and competition reform, while important, can only take us so far. It may help prices fall faster than feathers after shocks and support more diverse supply chains, but in a world of escalating climate disruption, geopolitical instability and fossil fuel dependence, the priority must be to reduce the shocks that keep pushing prices up in the first place.
That is why the third route - limiting price rises in the first place - matters most. Reaching net zero emissions is scientifically the only route to stopping ever worsening climate change, but also fundamentally reduces the exposure of food prices to volatile oil and gas prices. Decarbonising the food system means cutting reliance on oil and gas across energy, inputs and packaging; scaling nature‑friendly, low‑input farming; and building more diverse, resilient and localised supply chains.
Many of these approaches come with additional benefits. Nature‑friendly farming improves soil health, lowers flood risk, and increases climate resilience. Reducing ultra processed food consumption is beneficial for the nation’s health and minimises NHS costs. Diversifying supply chains is one of the best ways of ensuring security of supply and increased resilience.
In a turbulent world of rocket-and-feather prices, climate shocks and fossil fuel volatility, not focussing on resilience is risky. As we’re unfortunately all finding out, food prices depend less on how the system performs in the calm, and more on whether it can withstand the storm.
References
[1] ECIU analysis of the ONS consumer prices index and average weekly earnings data.
2] Food Foundation, The Broken Plate (2025): https://foodfoundation.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-01/TFF_The%20Broken%20Plate%202005%20FINAL%20DIGITAL.pdf
[3] ECIU, Families hit by £605 food bill as extreme weather and energy crisis bites (2023): https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2023/families-hit-by-605-food-bill-as-extreme-weather-and-energy-crisis-bites
[4] ECIU, Why food prices are still rising: butter, beef and milk to blame (2025): https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2025/why-food-prices-are-still-rising-butter-beef-and-milk-to-blame
[5] Food and Drink Federation (2026), FDF revises food inflation forecast to at least 9% by the end of 2026: https://www.fdf.org.uk/fdf/news-media/press-releases/2026/fdf-revises-food-inflation-forecast-to-at-least-9-by-the-end-of-2026/
[6] Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Voters blame politicians for cost of living crisis (2025) https://www.jrf.org.uk/public-attitudes/voters-blame-politicians-for-cost-of-living-crisis
[7] ECIU, Rockets and Feathers (2026): https://eciu.net/analysis/reports/rockets-and-feathers
[8] CPI ANNUAL RATE 01 : FOOD AND NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES 2015=100 https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7g8/mm23
[9] See Rockets and Feathers for an explanation of this or work such as that by Isabella Weber, for example: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/roke/11/2/article-p183.xml
[10] ECIU, Food prices set to rise by 50% since start of cost-of-living crisis, new analysis shows (2026): https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/food-prices-set-to-rise-by-50-since-start-of-cost-of-living-crisis-new-analysis-shows
[11] Ipsos (2026), Nearly 9 in 10 (87%) Britons concerned over personal impact of Strait of Hormuz closure on the cost of food and other goods: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/nearly-9-in-10-87-percent-britons-concerned-over-personal-impact-strait-hormuz-closure-cost-food-and-other
