Cost-of-sandwich crisis: How sarnies including cheese and pickle or ham and tomato have never taken such a big bite out of your finances – as food price inflation hits 45-year high
- MailOnline have calculated how much sandwiches will cost to make at home
- We’ve compared Tesco figures from May last year to the same month this year
With the cost-of-living crisis showing few signs of relenting, hard-pressed Brits are constantly on the lookout for ways to save money.
The humble sandwich as the centre piece of a packed lunch is often the cheaper alternative to pricey High Street baguettes or a trip to the canteen.
But with food prices rising at their fastest rate in 45 years – highlighted as the principle driving force behind UK inflation – a cheese and pickle sarnie will now take a bigger bite out of your finances.
And as the cost of own-brand groceries soars by 13.5 per cent, MailOnline has calculated exactly how much your favourite sandwiches could cost you to make, compared to the same time last year. Here’s how much different sandwiches will cost you to make this year compared to 2022…
The total cost of this classic cheese and tomato sandwich has increased by 5p in a year
The nation’s top ten sandwiches, ranked
We’ve included the most basic sandwiches – from ham and cheese, and tuna and sweetcorn – to more luxurious ones like a chicken club and salmon and cream cheese to see how they rank.
We kept the same bread for every sandwich calculation, opting for two slices of Warburtons Toastie Thick Sliced White Bread (800g).
Similarly, we used the same brand of butter – Lurpak Lighter Spreadable (1kg) – for every sandwich. We have used 1tsp of butter in each sandwich, and made them a closed, two slice, sarnie.
The familiar orange pack of Warburtons currently costs around £1.40, while in 2022 it was £1.10.
In order to figure out how much two slices would cost, we found that an 800g loaf of bread typically contains around 20-25 slices, which we averaged to 22.5 slices – rounded up to 23.
Our calculations found that in 2023, it costs 12p for two slices, while in 2022, it cost 9p.
Meanwhile, the cost of Lurpak stayed the same for both years. To calculate the cost of how much we would need for each sandwich, we found that one kilogram of butter equals to 211.64 teaspoons, rounded up to 212 – we worked out that it would cost roughly 3p per teaspoon, per sandwich.
We’ve also worked out – on average – how many grams of each ingredient and condiment will be used in each sandwich, using figures from one of the big four supermarkets, Tesco.
For ease, we have also rounded up some of the figures.
And according to our findings, it’s not always the simple sandwiches that are the cheapest.
The cheapest to make: Cheese and pickle
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cheapest sandwich to make is the classic cheese and pickle.
While it contains just two ingredients, cheddar cheese and Branston’s Original Pickle chutney, the cost of making one at home hasn’t increased by much since last year.
In fact, it has only risen by four pence – a far cry from some of the other sandwiches.
Using 25g of Cathedral CityMature Cheddar Cheese for this sarnie, the cost has only risen from 20p in 2022 to 24p in 2023.
In 2023, 550g of the cheese costs £5.40, while in 2022 it would set you back £4.50.
For the chutney, we opted for Branston Original Pickle. In 2022, Tesco sold 720g for £2.50. Using 15g for this sandwich, we’ve divided the cost by grams of the entire jar to work out how much one gram would cost – a mere £0.00347.
We’ve then multiplied this by the exact grams we want to use, giving us a total of 5p.
Meanwhile, in 2023, the price of the same jar rose to £2.80, and using the same calculation, it would cost 6p (rounded up to the nearest penny) to spread some of the good stuff on your sarnie.
And using our calculations, for two slices of bread, in 2023 it costs 12p, while last year it cost 9p. This gives a total cost of 38p per sandwich in 2023.
And for 2022, it cost 34p to make a cheese and pickle sandwich at home.
The cheese and pickle sandwich is a British classic – the price has increased by 4p since 2022
Mid level: Ham and cheese
This may come as a shock to many, but the ham and cheese sandwich actually comes at mid level – ranking higher than a egg mayo and cress sarnie.
Surprisingly, the cost of Tesco’s honey roast ham, 18 slices or 380g, has stayed the same both years.
It will set you back £4, and working out the cost for two slices of ham, we have divided the price per slices.
This works out at 22p for one slice, multiplied by two to work out at 44p.
The cost of Cathedral City’s Cheddar Cheese rose by 4p from 2022 to 2023, from 20p for 25g to 24p.
Keeping the butter and bread the same, making a ham and cheese sarnie will cost you 81p this year, compared to a total cost of 74p last year.
With tomato and lettuce added into the mix, this will set you back 92p.
MailOnline has calculated the price of a cheese, ham and tomato sandwich made at home
Oooh, that’s expensive: Chicken club
The most expensive sandwich on our list is the chicken club, comprising of ready-to-eat chicken slices, cheese, half a tomato, lettuce, a couple of squirts of mayo and two slices of crispy bacon.
We’ve opted for Tesco Ready To Eat Flamegrilled Chicken Chunks (180g), of which we have calculated you’d need around 30g.
We’ve also gone for a Tesco iceberg lettuce, which we’re using 8g of, and half a Tesco salad tomato.
Once again, it’ll be filled with 25g of Cathedral CityMature Cheddar Cheese.
And for the bacon, it’s no other than Tesco’s Smoked T C Back Bacon Rasher (300g). There’s six slices in a packet, and we’re going to use two for this sandwich.
To top it all off and give it some creaminess, we’re using household favourite Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise.
And once again, for ease of calculations, the cost of the bread and butter for each year has been kept the same.
So here’s how much it’ll cost you to make this beast of a sandwich this year, compared to last…
This chicken club is 39p more expensive than it was to make last year
How some of the others ranked…
The posh salmon and cream cheese sandwich ranks high, costing 93p to make yourself this year. While in 2022, it was a whole seven pence cheaper to create yourself, 86p per sandwich.
Using Philadelphia Original Soft Cheese (280g) and Tesco Smoked Salmon Slices (180g), we’ve found that the price of fish has grown quite a lot in a year.
Filling up the sandwich with 21g of salmon, we’ve found that it would have cost you 61p last year, as opposed to 64p this year.
But you shouldn’t be afraid to lather on soft cheese, of which we’ve used 15g for this as there’s only been a price increase of one pence; 16p in 2022 versus 17p in 2023.
The posh salmon and cream cheese sandwich ranks high, costing 93p to make yourself
And the all-time favourite, the bacon sandwich is still a cheap and cheerful pick-me-up meal.
Using two rashers of Tesco’s Smoked T C Back Bacon Rasher (300g), it’ll cost you 70p, and 5p of 10g of Heinz Tomato Ketchup (700g) to make this sandwich this year.
This, alongside two slices of white bread and a teaspoon of butter, will work out at 90p.
Meanwhile, using the same ingredients and quantities, it will have been nearly 20 pence cheaper to make this sandwich last year (71p).
Breaking down the cost, it would have cost you 55p for two slices of bacon and 4p for ketchup.
The bacon sandwich is still a cheap and cheerful pick-me-up meal
However, the simple but yummy tuna sweetcorn sandwich edges on the more expensive side – at ninth place – of homemade sandwich making.
In 2023, Tesco Tuna Chunks In Sunflower Oil (145g) cost 80p, of which we have used a whole tin for in this sarnie. Meanwhile, Tesco’s Natural Sweet Sweetcorn In Water (325g) costs 70p.
But for this sandwich, we opted for a quarter, which is 81.25g. Dividing the total cost of the sweetcorn by the total weight, we multiplied this by the grams we need which we rounded up to the nearest penny -18p.
A tuna and sweetcorn sandwich with the ingredients pictured costs £1.16
And no tuna sandwich is complete without a dollop of mayonnaise, which we used 10g of for.
This year, it will cost you a whopping £1.16 per sandwich.
While in 2022, the cost was still over a pound, it was six pence cheaper to make this staple sandwich – costing £1.08.
This is because a singular tin of tuna would have cost 79p, while a quarter of the sweetcorn would have been 15p. And the mayo would have worked out to be 5p for this.
An egg mayonnaise and cress sandwich comes in at an estimated 42p to make
The Coronation chicken sandwich will now cost you 47p to put together at home
In data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Wednesday, the eye-watering rise of everyday staples like sugar, olive oil and eggs was laid bare.
The figures for April showed average food bills were up 19.3 per cent compared to 2022, down only slightly on March’s eye-watering 19.6 per cent.
The average cost of making a single cheese sandwich at home is now 40p, up 37 per cent in the past year, according to research conducted last month.
But inflation dropped out of double figures for the first time in eight months as easing energy costs offer relief to struggling Brits. The headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped to an annual rate of 8.7 per cent in April, from 10.1 per cent the previous month. It is the slowest pace since March last year.
But the fall was not as big as expected, with analysts predicting a number closer to 8 per cent.
Meanwhile, Ann Widdecombe, 75, who was a Brexit Party MEP and now backs the Reform Party, said that people who cannot afford to make a cheese sandwich should not ‘do the cheese sandwich’ .
She made the controversial comment on the BBC’s Politics Live programme in a debate about soaring food prices at the start of the month.
With British Sandwich Week, May 22-28, just gone, Costa Coffee and M&S teamed up to poll 2,000 British adults to reveal the nation’s top 10 most loved sandwiches.
Taking the top spot for Brits most sought-after sarnie is the popular ploughman’s cheese with 12 per cent of the vote.
Next on the top ten list was the more humble ham and cheese, with 7 per cent of the vote, and in third place the classic roast chicken and stuffing, also with 7 per cent.
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