Our normal food shopping has increased by 13.4% in price since 2019. Shoppers are looking for bargains with price promotions – such as multi-buys and price reductions – which now make up a fifth of their shopping.

The massive increase in food and drink prices since the UK left the world’s largest Free Trade Market, the EU, combined with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has meant that people are struggling to find any bargain they can – and these are often not the most healthy.

Alana McDonald, FSS Senior Public Health Nutrition Advisor, explained:

“With our weekly spend on groceries continuing to rise – for the same volume of products – it can be easy to be drawn into purchasing more food and drink items on promotion to save money.

“But, the reality is, many items with price promotions are not the cheapest option. Often promotions are on branded products and are more expensive than retailer own brand products to begin with.

“From previous findings, we know that items with price promotions tend to be on products which are high in calories and/or fats, sugar or salt, with little or no  nutritional value, so they aren’t improving  our health; quite the reverse.”

A new report released by Food Standards Scotland (FSS) examines data on retail food and drink purchased into homes in Scotland between 2019 and 2022.

Key findings include:

• Following the rise in volume of total food and drink purchased in 2020 and 2021, there was a decrease in 2022, returning to similar levels as those observed in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• The total annual spend on retail food and drink in 2022 was £10.5 billion compared to £9.3 billion in 2019, representing an increase of 13.4%.
• In 2022, 8% of the total volume of food and drink was purchased online. This represents a 66.4% increase in online purchasing between 2019 and 2022.
• In 2022, the average annual purchase of energy per person, per day was 2,232kcal.
• The average annual purchase of calories, total fat and saturated fat per person, per day all increased between the years 2019 and 2022, whilst total sugars and salt decreased.
• 20.0% of total food and drink purchased was on a price promotion in 2022. Since 2019, there has been a gradual decrease in the volume of food and drink purchased on price promotion.
• Temporary price reductions remained the price promotion type on which the highest volume of food and drink were purchased. Average spend on price promotion was greater (£2.19 per kilogram) than average spend off promotion (£1.67 per kg).
• Many discretionary food and drink categories continue to be purchased on price promotion at higher levels than healthier categories. In 2022, 28.3% of discretionary food and drink categories were purchased on price promotion.

FSS Chief Executive, Geoff Ogle, says the findings reinforce existing evidence that supports action on the restriction of promoting foods and drinks high in salt, fat or sugar.

“We recognise that families now face a real dilemma. Households are under significant pressure so understandably families are making decisions, such as buying items on promotion, to try and make their budgets stretch further.

“But we know that promotions are skewed towards unhealthy options. What we need is action to rebalance our food environment to make healthier options more affordable, so families don’t have this dilemma of buying unhealthy food to match their budgets.

“Promotions and marketing of unhealthy foods are a major part of our food environment and now more than ever what surrounds us, shapes us.”