Food prices are closing in on 50% higher than before Covid

Since the start of the decade, feeding a household has become relentlessly more expensive — and the cumulative rise is now closing in on a figure that would have sounded alarmist a few years ago: 50% more than before Covid. It is not quite there yet, but the trajectory is unmistakable, and the speed of the climb is the real story.

How far prices have already climbed

The official measure is the ONS food and non-alcoholic beverages index. Between November 2020 and November 2025 it rose 38.6% — call it 39% since the start of the decade. On the average household grocery bill, that is already over £1,300 a year more than the same shop cost five years ago.

From there, 50% is not a distant prospect. Forecasters expect the cumulative rise to approach, and potentially pass, 50% by the end of 2026 if energy and commodity pressures do not ease. Most of the way there is already behind us; the last stretch is in sight.

The part that is genuinely striking

What makes the climb toward 50% remarkable is less the destination than the speed of the ascent.

For most of the 2010s, food inflation was mild — prices rose only about 9% across the entire decade to January 2022. Then, in barely three years, they climbed by roughly 30%: more than three times the rise, in under a third of the time. The striking thing is not how big the number is, but how fast it arrived.

That speed is why it feels worse than the percentage suggests. Households budget against habit, and habit is built on the last few years of prices. When prices move a decade's distance in three years, habit is always out of date.

What is actually pushing prices up

No single cause — several forces are leaning on prices at once. They sort into three groups: what is happening to global commodities, what the climate is doing to particular foods, and a set of specifically British costs that arrived just as the global pressures were starting to ease.

But start with where the money actually goes, because it explains how so many different pressures can push the same price up. What you pay on the shelf is not just the food. A typical grocery price carries a stack of costs behind it, and each one is a lever:

None of the overhead lines is large on its own. The problem since Covid is that several have risen at the same time — energy, wages, packaging rules, the cost of imports — so the total climbs even when no single line looks dramatic. Here is what actually moved.

Climate-hit foods are doing most of the work

This is the finding that has surprised analysts. A small group of climate-exposed staples — butter, beef, milk, coffee and chocolate — rose 15.6% in the year to mid-2025, against just 2.8% for all other food and drink, according to the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. They make up only about 11% of the average basket, yet they have accounted for close to 40% of all food inflation.

Cocoa is the sharpest case: the world price has more than tripled in three years after heat and erratic rainfall wrecked West African harvests, which is why a chocolate bar has quietly become one of the fastest-inflating things in the shop. Coffee has followed a similar path. These are not costs a supermarket can negotiate away — they are set on global markets by the weather.

Energy, commodities and a weaker pound set the floor

Underneath the headline-grabbers sit the ordinary inputs from that breakdown — energy, transport, distribution. None is a big share of any single price, but they touch every product on every shelf, so when they move the whole basket moves with them. Grain costs feed straight into bread, cereals and anything baked. And because the UK imports roughly 40% of its food, a weaker pound against the euro raises the bill on everything bought abroad before it reaches a single shelf.

Then a stack of specifically British costs

This is the part that makes UK food inflation run hotter than the eurozone's — a cluster of domestic policy costs that landed in 2025, more or less together:

• Labour. In April 2025 the National Living Wage rose 6.7% to £12.21 an hour, and employer National Insurance went up at the same time. Together they add roughly £870 per employee per year for a typical food producer — and both making and selling food are labour-intensive, so the cost flows through to the shelf.
• Packaging. The new Extended Producer Responsibility levy charges producers for the packaging they put on the market — £423 a tonne for plastic, down to £192 for glass — at a cost the industry puts near £1.1 billion a year. The Bank of England estimates it could add up to half a percentage point to food inflation on its own, concentrated in packaging-heavy aisles like confectionery, ready meals and ambient grocery.
• Border friction. The final phase of post-Brexit checks on EU fruit and vegetables adds paperwork, delay and cost at the border — on exactly the fresh imports that fill the produce aisle.

Put together, the picture is a global shock — weather and commodities — that would have pushed prices up anywhere, plus a layer of home-grown cost the UK added on top just as the global part was fading. That combination is why prices here are still climbing toward 50% rather than levelling off.

What to take from it

• Food prices have already risen about 39% since 2020 (ONS) and are forecast to approach 50% by the end of 2026 — a milestone that looked implausible before the pandemic.
• The alarming part is the speed: food inflation arrived roughly three times the previous decade's rise, in a third of the time, which is why household budgets have not caught up.
• The macro number is fixed and shared by everyone. The one thing still in your hands is where you shop: on the same day, identical products can cost noticeably more at one supermarket than another.

PriceLens re-checks supported supermarket prices every 24 hours. We cannot undo the last five years. We can show you which shop is cheapest for the things you actually buy, today — which is the one number in all of this that is still yours to move.

Cumulative inflation figures are from ONS food and non-alcoholic beverage price data (November 2020 – November 2025); the end-2026 figure is a forecast. Category and driver figures are drawn from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, the Food & Drink Federation and the Bank of England, as cited. Prices and availability change; compare the live listing before buying.