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Is the meat in the UK too expensive? We checked the prices!

PicodiAugust 29, 2023

Meat, which is a source of protein, fats and vitamins, is an important part of the diet for many people – an average European consumes 68 kg of meat annually[1] or about 5.5 kg monthly. However, isn’t meat in the UK too expensive?

We decided to compare the prices of 1 kg of chicken fillet around the continent.

Why chicken?

  1. Poultry is the most commonly eaten meat[2];
  2. Chicken is white meat, which is easier to digest and healthier.

Price of meat in Europe

Our ranking consists of 45 countries, including those only partly in Europe. It turns out that the continental average price of 1 kg of chicken fillet is €7.78 (around £6.70).

The cheapest chicken meat can be found in the eastern part of the continent: in Türkiye (£2.83/kg), Russia (£2.86/kg) and Ukraine (£3.07/kg). On the other hand, citizens of Switzerland (£21.48/kg), Iceland (£13.96/kg) and Norway (£10.35/kg), have to pay the highest prices for their poultry.

In the chicken price ranking, the UK ranked as the 24th country out of 45 countries included – in July 2023, the average price of 1 kg of chicken was £5.87 (€6.84), below the European average.

Comparison of meat prices with wages

In order to make the comparison more fair, we calculated how many kilograms of chicken can be bought with the average wage in each country.

The best relation between meat prices and wages can be found in Luxembourg, where the average wage (over €4,500!) can get you 395 kg of chicken breast. Slightly less fits in the British (394.9 kg) and Dutch (369 kg) average wage.

The average British wage gets you 394.9 kg of chicken. This is more than in countries such as Germany (327 kg), Ireland (298 kg) and Norway (260 kg).

Click to see the entire ranking

No.CountryNumber of kilograms of chicken that can be bought with the average salary
1.Luxembourg395 kg
2.United Kingdom395 kg
3.Netherlands369 kg
4.Germany327 kg
5.Denmark313 kg
6.Ireland298 kg
7.Spain267 kg
8.Sweden264 kg
9.Norway260 kg
10.Finland257 kg
11.Belgium257 kg
12.Iceland241 kg
13.Switzerland229 kg
14.Poland211 kg
15.France202 kg
16.Austria201 kg
17.Estonia195 kg
18.Czechia194 kg
19.Hungary182 kg
20.Cyprus181 kg
21.Malta176 kg
22.Lithuania167 kg
23.Portugal166 kg
24.Italy164 kg
25.Slovakia158 kg
26.Russia155 kg
27.Slovenia152 kg
28.Latvia149 kg
29.Romania137 kg
30.Belarus125 kg
31.Croatia120 kg
32.Bulgaria118 kg
33.Montenegro111 kg
34.Kazakhstan110 kg
35.Türkiye109 kg
36.Ukraine106 kg
37.Greece103 kg
38.Moldova100 kg
39.Bosnia and Herzegovina94 kg
40.Serbia93 kg
41.Armenia88 kg
42.Azerbaijan86 kg
43.Albania76 kg
44.North Macedonia74 kg
45.Georgia72 kg

Prices in British online supermarkets

Chicken fillets in Tesco: £6.25/kg

All of the UK.

Chicken fillets in ASDA: £6.95/kg

Selected postcodes.

Chicken fillets in Sainsbury’s: £6.49/kg

All of the UK.

Chicken fillets in Morrisons: £6.50/kg

Selected postcodes.

Chicken fillets in Ocado: £10.75/kg

England and parts of Wales

Chicken fillets in Iceland: £6.90/kg

Selected postcodes.

Methodology and sources

Prices of 1 kg of chicken breast, as well as the average wages in different European countries, are from numbeo.com, a platform where hundreds of thousands of users from around the world monitor prices of products and services. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate data from Google Finance for July 2023. Prices in British online supermarkets as of 02.08.2023.

Other sources:

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1045028/per-capita-consumption-of-meat-in-europe/

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274522/global-per-capita-consumption-of-meat/

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