Your meal deal desk lunch costs nearly £1,000 a year

Which do you prefer: chicken salad and a smoothie, or a ham sandwich and a packet of Monster Munch? Whatever your order, the humble meal deal has fed the UK workforce for the past decade. But with food inflation on the up, that convenience now comes at a cost.

Last month, Sainsbury’s drew the ire of hangry Brits when it raised the price of its sandwich-crisps-drink combo to £3.79. But even that isn’t as expensive as the OG meal deal, Tesco, which has risen from £3 to £3.90 since its inception in 2013.

Once the best friend of budget-conscious city workers, this sarnie saver option is becoming rotten. We decided to find out just how much staff are spending on their daily supermarket trips, and ask how employers could help to line their workers’ stomachs and wallets.

Office lunch costs almost £1,000 a year

Most of us would probably rather not know how much we spend on an office lunch. Like paying your taxes, it can feel like an everyday living cost that cannot be avoided.

Still, the total amount adds up. We compared the price of four major supermarket meal deals. We then used this to calculate how much an employee would spend in total if they bought a meal deal everyday of the 48 working weeks in the year.

The results may be tough to swallow. On average, meal deal enthusiasts will spend £909 per working year on their lunch breaks, averaging out to nearly £19 per workweek.

The Co-operative, costing £4 per purchase, is the cheapest of the Big Four supermarket meal deals. Visiting the Co-op for lunch will set you back by £960 per year. That’s almost £120 more than at Morrisons, where the meal deal costs 50p less.

Going homemade could save nearly half a grand

Short of skipping meals, there aren’t many ways office workers can keep their lunchtime costs down. But buying the ingredients to make a meal deal is one way to save the pennies.

We totted up the estimated cost of ingredients to consume a ham and cheese sandwich, a packet of branded crisps, and a glass of Diet Coke, five days per week. In total, this weekly shopping basket came to £9.33, based on Aldi prices in August 2024.

That means those who eat lunch from home, or those who work in a fully remote role, could save £472.32 per year by switching to a meal deal from the kitchen fridge. That’s worth more than the average Brit’s three month food bill (estimated to be £35 per week).

Hybrid lunching?

Even limiting your meal deal munchies to just three times a week could save a substantial amount of money. The cost of making a homemade meal deal twice a week, and buying lunch out three days a week, would total £730.81 in one working year.

That means savvy savers, or those who work a hybrid shift pattern, could save £178.19 per year compared to eating out every working day.

The office lunch has been on the decline anyway this year. Food trends suggest consumers are turning away from the meal deal due to the poor options available from retailers.

UK workers are instead packing trendy adult lunch boxes with viral “office lunch” TikTok recipes, and spending the money saved (roughly £7.50 per week) at a street food market.

The return to office will not be catered for

Rising lunch prices are one of many factors that have made home working more appealing to employees this year. With the cost of living crisis continuing to bite employees, many are using flexible working perks to hibernate at home and lower their daily spend.

Another influencer is commute fares. In a survey by Ringover, 83% of respondents said that they would visit the office more if their company funded their commute to work.

The study raises an interesting question over whether a free lunch might be a cheaper employee benefit to improve office attendance. Many companies have caused controversy this year over poorly planned return to office (RTO) mandates.

With homemade lunches still costing UK staff £463.63 per year, according to our estimates, employer-subsidised meal deals could tip the scales in favour of in-office working this year.