ONS: Food ate up a hefty slice of household budgets during Covid

The average UK household spent 14.4 percent of spending on food and non-alcoholic drinks in the year to April 2021, up from 10.8 percent in the previous year, new data shows.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the 20 percent of households with the lowest incomes spent 18.3 percent of their total expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages in the period, compared to 14.7 percent the year before.

Sarah Coles, a senior personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the data shows that ‘food was already eating up a much larger share of our budget, before the horror of food inflation hit’.

The average household spent £39.71 per person per week on food and drink in the year to April 2021, the ONS added.

Spending on food and drink eaten away from home fell 78.3 per cent in real terms from £15.36 a week in 2019/20 to just £3.33 a week in 2020/21 amid the mass lockdown of restaurants, cafes, pubs, bars and hotels.

Ms Coles said: ‘In the year to April 2021, when CPI inflation was just 1.5 per cent, we spent on average more than 14 per cent of our income on food – and those on lower incomes spent more than 18 per cent.

“In both cases, this is higher than at any time since the financial crisis in 2008. Part of this was due to pandemic trends, but it shows how vulnerable we were when prices started to skyrocket.

“The portion of our budgets spent on food was due in large part to the restrictions still in place elsewhere in 2020/21, overtaking transportation and recreation and culture to become our second largest expense after energy.

“Part of the extra spending may have been to make up for what we missed out on — which may be why sugar sales rose nearly 24 percent, alcohol sales rose more than 20 percent, and confectionery sales rose nearly 18 percent. .’

More recently, the consumer price index rose 11.1 percent in the year to October, up from 10.1 percent in September.

Habits: Average spending on food and drink in the UK in the year to April 2021

Variations: Average share of spending in all households in 2021, according to the ONS

Comparisons: average prices for food and non-alcoholic drinks in the UK since 1999

Last month, figures from the ONS revealed that food price inflation in the year to October was 16.2 percent, compared to 14.5 percent in September. The cost of basic products such as milk, cheese and eggs has risen enormously in recent months.

Households are struggling not only with food prices rising at the fastest pace in 45 years, but also with higher energy and fuel costs.

In November, the ONS said higher prices hit poorer households hardest, as they spent about half of their income on food and energy, compared to about a third for middle-income earners.

Ms Coles said: ‘Assuming that food and drink were still a bigger part of household expenditure when inflation started to pick up, that would leave a lot of people vulnerable.

In particular, those on lower incomes, who spent nearly a fifth of their income on food during the pandemic, are likely to have struggled with price hikes that saw them rise by more than 16 percent in the year to October.

It’s one of the reasons why 41 percent of people say they cut back on essentials, including food, to make ends meet – and why this rises to 58 percent among those in the fifth most deprived areas.

“It’s also why the Trussell Trust says it distributed 1.3 million food parcels to those in need between April and September – this is 52 per cent more than the same period in 2019.”