Vegetable sales fell to to its lowest level in half a century despite initiatives designed to boost consumption.
An analysis of Defra data released by the Food Foundation found that schemes such as ‘Peas Please’ had failed to encourage greater sales of vegetables.
Instead, campaigners said the impact of the cost-of-living crisis caused a sustained slump in vegetable sales as it had made it even harder for low-income families to afford healthy food.
Food Foundation’s analysis showed that while government figures show sales to be low yet constant rate for the past thirty years, this figure fell sharply in 2021.
The data, which covers retail and the out-of-home sector, showed that veg sales decreased from 182g per person per day in 2020/21 to 154g in 2021-22.
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This coincides with data from Kantar that showed the volume share of vegetables bought from retailers fell below the 20% per basket recommendation in the Eatwell Guide, averaging at 6.8% over the past six years, a dip from 7.2%.
In addition, the figures revealed this decline was worse for households with lower income, as basket data from the year 2022-23 revealed that those earning less than £10,000 a year, vegetables sales made up 5.9% of their shopping basket consisted of veg, compared to 8.2% for those earning over £70,000 a year.
The proportion of shopping baskets containing vegetables over the course of the Peas Please programme (Kantar data provided to the Peas Please initiative)
In response, the Food Foundation called upon the government and businesses to do more to ensure UK shoppers are able to embrace a healthy vegetable incorporated diet.
Food foundation senior business and investor manager Rebecca Tobi said: “While Peas Please has shown what industry can do when making specific and targeted commitments to increase sales and servings of veg, across the wider UK market, which includes many more businesses than those that are pledgers, we’ve seen a fall in the amount of veg being bought by UK households.”
“We urgently need to see businesses stepping up to make eating veg the easy and affordable option, and more support from the government to ensure everyone is able to access and afford a healthy diet.”
