Anyone who has ever done the big Christmas grocery shop in Ireland might be forgiven for spitting out a mouthful of stuffing and sprouts in surprise at how much Kantar Worldpanel thinks we spend on the big day.
At the start of this week, the retail analysts and market research company published their annual assessment of what an Irish Christmas dinner will cost. On the surface, it looked like fairly good news.
The figures suggested that a festive feed for a family of four in 2024 will climb by just 2 per cent when compared with last year.
The total cost at the checkout came in at €34.74, a price that covered some seasonal staples, including turkey, stuffing, sprouts and cranberry sauce. To be clear, this covers the cost of the quantity of food that two adults and two children would eat for the Christmas Day dinner.
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Mince pies were also added to the plate, although, as the singular sugary treat, they were something of an outlier.
[ Christmas dinner cost climbs as supermarkets prepare for consumer spending spreeOpens in new window ]
According to the Kantar analysis, the cost of frozen turkey has risen just over 5 per cent since last year’s Christmas dinner, while potatoes are 4.3 per cent more expensive. Sprouts and parsnips are up by about 12 per cent and carrots have climbed in price by 6.6 per cent. The cost of mince pies is said to be 10.6 per cent higher than last year but the gravy, cranberry sauce and stuffing have all fallen in price.
Now, obviously, all Irish households are different and people eat different things on the big day and in different amounts. Kantar’s meal plan looks just a little miserable and certainly at odds with the experience of most Irish people who are more inclined to use Christmas Day (and the post-Christmas period) as an excuse to eat and drink with all the wanton abandon of a Tudor king rather than a Dickensian anti-hero.
As well documented over many years, Irish people hit the supermarkets hard on December 23rd – the busiest shopping day of the year – and pile stuff into their trolleys like they are heading into an underground bunker fearing a nuclear apocalypse.
“Last year we saw a whopping €87 million go through the tills on December 23rd, and we’re expecting this again, with Monday set to be the single busiest day for the supermarkets this year,” said Kantar’s Emer Healy.
Even before then she said there have been “clear signs that Irish shoppers are stocking up early, especially when it comes to festive favourites”.
During November shoppers spent an additional €4.5 million on assorted biscuits and crackers on the previous month, with almost one in five households buying their mince pies early and more than a third getting their seasonal chocolates in ahead of time.
All that food already bought and all the food still waiting on our supermarket shelves will have to be eaten – and it will be – with gusto. Many Irish consumers will munch and drink their way through an almost unconscionable 6,000 calories on Christmas Day alone, according to the Royal Society for Public Health.
One thing is certain – they are not getting all those calories for €34.74 and the arguably excessive consumption will come at a much higher cost to our waists and our wallets.
We don’t seem to mind paying the price. Multiple studies over many years have highlighted how Ireland is always at the top of the European spending league at Christmas, with the holiday period in Ireland routinely costing five times more than in the Netherlands, which is regularly found at the bottom of the spending league.
The amount of money Irish people look set to spend this Christmas has rebounded sharply when compared with last year, according to recent figures from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
[ I need to book a restaurant for Christmas dinner with friends. Am I too late?Opens in new window ]
It suggests that the cost of an Irish Christmas will climb by an average of 14 per cent this year, with one in four Irish consumers expecting to spend more than they did last year. It puts the likely spend at €1,177, compared with €1,030 in 2023, which includes more than food.
The Irish Times has carried out its own Christmas food pricing surveys and the results are nowhere near as upbeat – or as abstemious – as the Kantar figures might have us believe.
In early December 2021, we filled a virtual shopping trolley with a turkey, ham, mince pies, breakfast materials, melon, plum pudding and a few other Christmas Day essentials, including tins of biscuits.
We did not go wild or buy the most expensive options but, even so, the cost of our basket of 25 items, sufficient to feed a family of two hungry adults and three hungry children on the big day and allowing for a few – okay, quite a few – leftovers, came to a hefty €156.45.
We carried out the same exercise a year later, buying the same products, as the cost of living crisis was deepening and our spending came in at €233.75.
Earlier this week we went virtual shopping again, mainly in the big supermarkets, although we went for the more premium ranges and priced a turkey crown in a high-end butchers which added at least €20 on to the cost. Even so, the final bill came in at €273.23, €40 more than we spent last year.
Our virtual shopping is not the only indicator of more costly dinners. Before Christmas 2020, Marks & Spencer was selling an Oakham turkey breast that it promised would serve six to eight people for €28. This year the UK retailer is selling an Oakham “slow cooked” turkey breast joint for four people for €46.
A Collection Outdoor-Bred Sugar-Baked Gammon Joint for eight to 10 people was priced by the retailer at €23 four Christmases ago. Today a similar joint for six costs €28.
Six chocolate pine cones which were €19 are now €20. The M&S Collection Outdoor-Bred Pork Garnish Selection, which is now €20, was then €15. The retailer’s potato gratin for six was €12 but is now €14, while enough Brie en Croute for six people that once cost €20 costs €25 now.
Damian O’Reilly, a TU Dublin academic and retail analyst, said that while food prices have climbed only marginally over the past 12 months, the difference between Christmas 2024 and the years before the cost of living began to spiral in the months after Russia invaded Ukraine are much more pronounced.
“A basket of goods which cost €100 in 2013 cost €122 at the end of October and while there was almost no price movement between 2013 and 2021, almost all of the increases have been recorded over the last three years,” he said.
The reasons are easy to identify.
“Wages have gone up, energy costs have gone up, fertiliser costs have gone up,” he said.
Up and down the supply chain it is much the same story. Mr O’Reilly said that this weekend, more than any other, retailers will be offering deals on some products to drive footfall.
“There will be certain things sold as loss leaders, with alcohol discounted and bigger-ticket items such as turkeys going for less than shoppers might expect. But it is all designed to bring people in for their big shop,” he said.
While Kantar’s figures might apply to some people, many others “tend to buy higher-quality products because it’s Christmas,” Mr O’Reilly said.
“There is a reason the private labels are the worst performers in December. By contrast the local butchers always do well.”
The queues you will see outside your local butchers in three days’ time will be testament to that fact.
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