Every year, the price of Christmas dinner makes the news. This year is more shocking than most, with The Grocer reporting that the cost of our favourite Christmas veg has risen by as much as 30% in the last year.

30% is a big deal for all but the wealthiest of British shoppers.

And for the one in ten UK households currently experiencing food insecurity, this is yet another reminder that the simple act of putting fresh fruit and veg on the table is becoming harder every year.

But the Christmas dinner story reveals something deeper. Since early 2022, food prices in the UK have risen by more than 25%. This is the equivalent of nearly fifteen years of typical inflation compressed into just two. Even with inflation slowing, food prices continue to skyrocket, and the pressure is felt most sharply by people on the lowest incomes.

The impact is reflected in people’s diets: 64% of food insecure households report cutting back on fruit and 50% on veg, compared with 14% and 8% of food secure households. For many children, missing out on fruit and veg is not a one-off, it’s shaping their health and eating habits for years to come.

This trend exposes the fragility of a food system where access to healthy, culturally appropriate food depends increasingly on income, geography and circumstance. When fresh fruit and veg become less affordable, the consequences ripple far beyond the festive season. They shape long-term health and wellbeing, economic growth and productivity, and the resilience of local food economies.

This is why the national policy conversation needs to shift. Recent commitments in the NHS 10-Year Plan, which include restricting advertising to children and tighter planning controls on hot food takeaways, are welcome. But stemming the flow of unhealthy options alone is not enough. Bold action is also needed to expand equitable access to affordable, minimally processed, nutritious food. In short: we have to make it easier to buy the healthy stuff, as well as making it harder to buy junk.

Across the UK, communities are already demonstrating what works. Place-based organisations and community-led food initiatives are able to reach people with dignity, responding to local needs and strengthening local food economies in ways that national systems often cannot. When properly supported, through flexible multi-year funding, these approaches deliver lasting impact and value for money.

Current policy developments present a real opportunity to scale these solutions through the English Devolution agenda, the Pride in Place strategy and the commitment to neighbourhood-level health and care in the NHS Ten Year Plan. These could create frameworks to embed community food initiatives into wider health, social and economic planning and have the potential to align national priorities with local expertise, enabling communities to shape food systems that are equitable, resilient and sustainable.

Seasonal price rises may dominate the headlines, but they point to a year round reality. For too many households, access to nutritious food remains a struggle. The communities we work with at Alexandra Rose are already demonstrating solutions that work. The challenge now is to scale these approaches so that a nutritious Christmas dinner, and the fresh, healthy food it represents, is not a privilege, but an expectation for everyone, regardless of who they are and where they live.