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Is the price of a sustainable and healthy diet… unsustainable?

Healthier foods are more than twice as expensive per calorie as less healthy foods, with healthier food increasing in price at twice the rate in the past two years.

Food with a lower environmental impact also comes with a considerable premium, with plant-based milk (£1.92 per litre) now 55% more expensive than dairy milk (£1.24 per litre), for example. Soya, while being the cheapest alternative milk, is still on average 26% more expensive than dairy milk.

The findings, using data from the UK market, are part of the annual Broken Plate report, published by The Food Foundation charity, with support from the Nuffield Foundation, a charitable trust.

Healthy food: Mind the price gap

Healthier foods have long been more expensive, but the research shows the gap has widened in the past two years: the price of more healthy foods rose by 21% between 2022 and 2024, while less healthy foods increased 11%.

In 2024, healthier foods averaged £8.80 per 1,000 kcal compared with £4.30 for less healthy foods. Dietary inequalities in the UK have worsened as a result.

"There is a tragic imbalance in the UK between the food that is marketed, available and affordable, and foods that are healthy and sustainable,” said Anna Taylor, executive director at The Food Foundation.

The most deprived fifth of the population would need to spend 45% of their disposable income on food to afford the government-recommended healthy diet, rising to 70% for households with children. The overall figure has decreased from the peak of the cost-of-living crisis (50% in 2021-22) but remains higher than the previous year's figure (43% in 2020-21).

The report brings together data from a range of sources and reveals a food system with health inequalities built into it.

For example, 37% of supermarket promotions on food and non-alcoholic drinks are for unhealthy items; 26% of places to buy food in England are fast-food outlets, rising to nearly one in three in the most deprived fifth of areas; and 36% of food and soft drink advertising spend is on confectionery, snacks, desserts, and soft drinks, compared with just 2% for fruit and vegetables.

On average, children consume less than half the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables but twice the recommended amount of sugar.

Climate crisis, food costs, and a new consortium

This report assesses eight key metrics – from advertising expenditure and sugar in children’s food products to the cost of more sustainable options – to illustrate the state of the food environment.

Most metrics show no improvement, or worse, show deterioration. The UK food sector is, for example, falling behind the rest of the economy in decarbonisation. While emissions across the UK economy decreased by 38% between 2008 and 2022, the food system achieved only a 17% reduction in the same period.

The Food Foundation is part of a new consortium of academics, campaigners and analysts, announced last month, that will be exploring the impact of climate change on food prices, or so-called “climateflation”.

Food with a lower environment impact currently costs more, as The Food Foundation’s research showed. However, its survey did find that own-brand alternative milks can be comparable in price or even cheaper than dairy milk (the cheapest 25% of plant-based milks are on average £1.18 per litre, which is 6p cheaper than the average price of fresh dairy).

Speaking at the Sustainable Food Conference in London in late January, Emily Miles, director general at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, called for a “credible plan” for achieving net zero.

Several sessions at the conference highlighted the now desperate need for increased access to affordable, nutritious, sustainable food. As James Mayer, Danone’s president for UK and Ireland, put it, “We need a new mission,” and that is to provide “healthier food at scale”.

Mayer was one of several industry executives to call for more regulation.

Future of UK food policy

The UK government is currently weighing up what the future of food regulation and policy looks like. A new national food strategy for England is being written, and the early signs are encouraging, with ministers talking about change in food systems, linking health, environment, society, and economics.

Taken together, The Food Foundation’s metrics paint a picture of where the UK government, elected in July 2024, begins its term in office. This is “a stark reminder that there is a lot more still to be done if we are to see improvements across a complex food system that has become an active driver of health inequalities”, Taylor said.

The Foundation’s report calls for “systemic change”, which needs “visionary leadership with ambition to not merely tweak around the edges with token gestures, but to create transformative change [that] can bring us back from the brink”.

Reacting to the report’s findings, Professor Susan Jebb, Food Standards Agency chair, said: “We need to find ways to deliver safe, healthy, sustainable food as the default across the food system.”

The food system has achieved “extraordinary” things considering the accessibility and availability of food, noted Daniel Zeichner, the UK farming and food security minister, at the Sustainable Food Conference.

However, it has also contributed to the UK being one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, while the cost of obesity and poor diets has now hit £74 billion.

“Too often the responsibility is set on individuals,” he said, as he talked of the “transition” now needed in food and farming. It’s not as if we don’t how to do it, he added, but “it proved too difficult for the previous government”.

There is much for the government to chew over, and the challenges are already emerging. The government’s response to the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee’s report Recipe for health: A plan to fix our broken food system offered little in the way of detail.

Indeed, during a webinar on the topic, the committee’s chair, Baroness Walmsley, reportedly tore up the government document in disgust.