Cost-of-sandwich crisis: How sarnies including cheese and pickle have never cost so much
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
- Ploughman’s
- Ham and cheese
- Cheese
- Roast chicken salad
- Prawn mayo
- Egg and cress
- BLT
- Tuna and sweetcorn
- Chicken and bacon
- Sausage
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…
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