Cost of Healthy Food

Income needed to purchase healthy food, UK
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The Food Foundation calculated the cost of healthy eating for families in different income quintiles. Keeping to the Eatwell Guidelines costs an adult £7.34 per day.

Accounting for housing costs and family sizes, those in the poorest quintile needed to spend 47% of their disposable income per week on healthy food to keep to these guidelines. Those in the wealthiest quintile only had to spend 11% of their disposable income on healthy food.

We cannot compare these figures with previous years since the methodology has changed. However, in previous years, figures were presented for each income decile, with the largest gap appearing between the most deprived decile (who, in 2019, needed to spend 76% of their disposable income to eat healthily) and the second most deprived decile (who needed to spend 27%).