Turkey up, spuds down – how the cost of this year’s Christmas dinner has changed

Turkey and sprouts are synonymous with Christmas dinner and this year a rise in the price of both means the festive feast will cost you slightly more at the supermarket.

A typical turkey dinner with all the trimmings will cost about £32.45, according to research done for the BBC – a £1.24 or nearly 4% rise on last year.

It comes after bird flu led to large numbers of turkeys being culled early, while a drier spring and summer hit sprout harvests.

However, the humble but golden potato and parsnip have gone down in price, along with – if you have any room – Christmas pudding and mince pies. Our seasonal snapshot reflects that overall food price rises are beginning to slow down.

The centre piece to the traditional family feast – the turkey – costs £20, for a standard 10lb (4.55kg) frozen one. The same bird was £18.62 last year – that’s a 7.37% rise, according to the research from retail tracking platform Assosia.

The ever-divisive Brussels sprouts went up by more than 9% to 94p a bag, it found.

The data is based on prices on 6 December 2025 and the same date in 2024, across own-brand products from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl.

However, every year as supermarkets compete for our Christmas custom many slash the prices of their bags of veg as low as 8p so there are bargains to be had.

The cost of a supermarket shop is now rising much slower than when food prices spiked sharply following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In Potterspury, near Milton Keynes, hundreds of free-range turkeys usually amble around farmer Susan Gorst, pecking at the grass.

But in November, all bird farmers in England were ordered to keep their flocks indoors and many were culled early to limit the spread of bird flu.

She says turkeys eat more feed when they can’t graze outdoors so this pushed up her costs. But she says her customers understand she has to pass this on.

“I think people are now generally expecting an increase on most things year on year,” she says.

The rising price of turkey “could have been a lot worse,” according to John Muff, co-owner of Muff’s Butchers in Wirral. He estimates it’s up by £1-2 per kilo since last Christmas.

“All year round we’ve seen price increases, almost on a weekly basis, 5p here, 10p there,” he says.

Pork has also gone up in price, with pigs in blankets now £2.59, or 5.3% higher than last year.

John says this didn’t surprise him. The cost of making their sausages from scratch has seen a “steady increase throughout the year,” he says.

He says “every aspect is going up,” from animal feed, energy, transport and wages.

But he thinks higher supermarket prices might be tempting shoppers into a trip to the butchers.

“They’re thinking to themselves: If I’m going to pay that sort of price, I may as well come in here and get the proper stuff,” he says.

Whether you celebrate or shun the sprouts at Christmas, the success of this little green veg is highly dependent on the weather.

Alan Steven, a sprout farmer in Fife, says this spring the ground was so dry he had to water his fields before he could plant his seeds – for the first time in 10 years.

He had the cost of irrigating twice more over the summer due to prolonged hot weather.

And so far the winter has been milder which means the sprout plants are more prone to disease, he says.

The price of root vegetables has remained firmly planted – with no change to the cost of carrots – and potatoes and parsnips just a penny cheaper than last year.

Scott Walker, chief executive of GB Potatoes, said planting and harvesting conditions were favourable this year, but the middle of the season, was “one of the driest in modern memory”. The summer was the hottest on record in the UK.

Farmers who didn’t have irrigation systems would have suffered and those who could water their crops would have had higher electricity and fuel costs, he says.

“We’ve had more modest rises than we’ve had over the past couple of years, but costs have still gone up,” he says.

The trouble with potato prices is you never know what you’re going to get, says Lucy Munns, a potato farmer in Cambridgeshire.

She said a good price for her potatoes would be £200 a tonne, but she was anticipating prices as low as £80 in December.

Hot spells while potatoes are growing causes them to be oddly shaped and they can be rejected by supermarkets and fish and chip shops, she says.

Another side dish which saw a slight dip in price was stuffing mix – dropping 1.32% to 50p for 170g.

And lashings of gravy will also be cheaper this year, with gravy granules dropping 7.35% to 91p for 200-300g.

If after the Christmas feast you still have appetite for a sweet treat you’ll be glad to hear that Christmas pudding and mince pies are cheaper this year.

A pack of six iced mince pies will cost £1.77, which is 2.75% cheaper than in 2024. A standard 400g pudding comes in at £2.35, or a drop of 7.42%.

It’s down to falling flour and sugar prices – there is currently a global sugar surplus.

In the UK, falling sugar, jam and chocolate prices contributed to lower inflation rates in December.

• Start with a budget: Plan ahead and add up hidden expenses, like tin foil for roasting a turkey.
• Write a food list: Decide on your must haves and what you might not miss.
• Plan your leftovers: A next day meal plan will mean less goes to waste
• Bargain hunt: Look out for online offers as well as yellow sticker items which have been reduced.
• Use your freezer: Christmas foods that freeze well include butter, meat joints and some cheeses like cheddar.
• Join up with friends and family: This means you can buy bigger pack sizes, which are often better value.

Read more from the BBC Food team here

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