Your article on UK food prices being on track to be 50% higher by November 2026 (4 May), read alongside your editorial on unhealthy Britain (3 May) describes a single story from two ends. Food has become unaffordable and the households absorbing those price rises are getting sicker.
By the time poor health shows up in the data, families have been cutting food quality, quantity and variety for years. The Bread and Butter Thing runs affordable food clubs from Maidstone to Northumberland, supporting more than 10,000 households each week. Last week alone, 439 new members joined our network. Our 2025 survey of more than 8,500 members shows the mechanism playing out. Among households with £0-£25 left each month after housing and energy bills, 87% describe their overall health as not good.
The food industry is warning the Treasury that without intervention, the next wave of inflation will land on consumers already at the edge. For the families we work with, that wave has been arriving in slow motion for years. Food is the first thing to be cut when budgets are tight. The freshest food is the most expensive. Whole neighbourhoods are food deserts.
But the trajectory is reversible. More than a quarter of our members with long-term conditions report improved health since joining, and three-quarters of all members report better access to healthy food where they live. The government needs to stop treating affordable fresh food as charity and start treating it as prevention infrastructure.
Vic Harper
CEO, The Bread and Butter Thing
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
