By Keef Williamson
Two years ago we reported on the price of ingredients for an, admittedly basic, Christmas dinner.
The total cost of the ingredients in 2022 was £14.38. Just to clarify, we were making our festive feast for four people, so we only used 1 kg of the 2.5 kg bag of tatties, only a couple of tablespoons of the jar of gravy granules and so on. But to make things easier to compare, we will just look at the overall cost of the items from two years ago and now.
This year’s price review is purely from Aldi in Bramley.
| Item | 2022 (£) | 2024(£) |
| Bacon-wrapped stuffed turkey roll | 5.29 | 5.49 |
| Streaky bacon | 1.25 | 2.29 |
| Pork chipolatas | 1.49 | 2.49 |
| Parsnips | 0.49 | 0.75 |
| Carrots | 0.24 | 0.38 |
| Brussels Sprouts | 0.89 | 0.85 |
| Red Cabbage | 0.61 | 0.75 |
| Potatoes (2.5kg bag) | 1.49 | 2.25 |
| Sage & onion stuffing | 0.43 | 0.45 |
| Premium gravy granules | 1.65 | 1.49 |
| Cranberry sauce | 0.55 | 0.49 |
| TOTAL | 14.38 | 17.68 |
As you would expect, most of the items have increased in price, some of them – bacon, chipolatas, vegetables – quite dramatically. Brussels sprouts have had an excellent year, though, so they’re a little bit cheaper than previously. The ‘industrial’ products – gravy granules and cranberry sauce have both come down in price, I know not why.
The conclusion, then, is that we’ve seen an overall increase of £3.30 over the two years. That’s 22.85%.
Given that UK inflation was 9.1% in 2022, 7.3% in 2023 and has now calmed down to 2.5% in 2024, it looks like the price of your Christmas feast is running ahead of inflation.
Chicken nuggets, anyone? Or an actual turkey will cost you upwards of £15. If you really want to push the boat out, Aldi have geese at £27 a pop.
Whatever you manage to do for your Festive feast, we wish you a Merry Christmas.
Keef Williamson is a Bramley-based community reporter with West Leeds Dispatch and runs a YouTube cooking channel called KeefCooks. He has made a video of how to make this budget Christmas dinner – it features a lot more detail and quite a few laughs.