This page shows findings from published studies and reports. Sources are cited below each chart; full references are at the bottom of the page.
All four values come from the same GB household panel (Kantar Usage, total main-meal occasions, 52 weeks ending 23 February 2025), as reported by AHDB (2025). A meal containing meat, fish or poultry (MFP) averages £2.86; substituting the meat with a plant-based alternative leaves the cost almost unchanged at £2.82 (a 4p saving, about 1.4%; the chart's percentage follows the article's own rounded label, so it shows 1%); a meal without meat averages £1.57, a 45% saving; and the average across all main meals is £2.31, 19% below the MFP meal. These are household retail purchases, not catering costs, and are not income-controlled. Source: AHDB (2025, reporting Kantar).
Springmann et al. (2021) modelled the cost of energy- and nutrient-matched dietary patterns in 150 countries at 2017 international prices. The chart shows the UK (GBR) cells from the study's supplementary cost dataset: the change in daily diet cost at market prices, relative to the modelled current UK diet.
At market prices the flexitarian pattern is 17.0% cheaper than the current UK diet (95% CI 13.3 to 18.5); vegetarian 26.5% (high-grain variant 30.9%), vegan 20.8% (high-grain 33.3%) and pescatarian 1.9% (high-grain 5.4%) cheaper (statistically insignificant). These are modelled retail prices, not catering prices. Source: Springmann et al. (2021), supplementary data.
| Dietary pattern | Market prices | Market, waste halved | With health costs | With climate costs | Full cost | Full cost, waste halved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vegan (high-grain) | -33.3% | -43.7% | -37.4% | -36.4% | -39.9% | -48.6% |
| Vegetarian (high-grain) | -30.9% | -41.1% | -35.0% | -33.1% | -36.7% | -45.3% |
| Vegetarian | -26.5% | -37.5% | -31.0% | -29.0% | -32.9% | -42.2% |
| Vegan | -20.8% | -33.4% | -25.9% | -24.9% | -29.2% | -39.8% |
| Flexitarian | -17.0% | -30.5% | -22.1% | -19.2% | -23.7% | -35.1% |
| Pescatarian (high-grain) | -5.4% | -22.8% | -11.6% | -8.8% | -14.2% | -28.9% |
| Pescatarian | -1.9% | -20.0% | -8.3% | -5.5% | -11.1% | -26.3% |
Change in daily diet cost vs the current UK diet on each of the study's cost bases; darker green = larger saving. "Waste halved" reprices the diet with food waste cut by half; "with health costs" and "with climate costs" add the diet's modelled diet-related health costs or climate-change costs to market prices; "full cost" adds both. All 42 UK cells are cheaper than the current diet. For scale, the modelled current UK diet costs USD 7.69 per person per day at market prices (2017 international prices), rising to USD 9.13 when health and climate costs are included. The dataset also includes the average high-income-country diet as a comparator scenario (not a plant-based pattern, so not shown): at market prices it would be 6.2% cheaper than the current UK diet. Source: Springmann et al. (2021), supplementary data.
The France value (Un Plus Bio, 2020) is the ingredient-cost gap between French canteens serving a daily vegetarian option (EUR 1.96 per meal) and those serving none (EUR 2.30), about 15%; France 2019 data. The CAWF (2024) basket is a hypothetical UK comparison priced partly on US dietary data. Source: CAWF (2024); Un Plus Bio (2020).
Case study: NYC Health + Hospitals (US). The largest institutional implementation measured to date points the same way in catering money: recipe-level plant-based reformulation across NYC's 11 public hospitals saved a self-reported USD 0.59 per meal in 2023 (about £0.47 in 2025 money). The case differs from the GB panel in jurisdiction, setting and method, so the contrast illustrates the mechanism rather than a controlled estimate. Source: NYC Health + Hospitals (2024).
Drewnowski and Conrad (2024) price US protein sources both ways from the same national retail price data. The chart shows the cost of 50g of protein (100% of the US daily value) from each source, with pulses (peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas) as the plant-based reference.
Per 100g of food the same data make pulses the cheapest protein source of all (USD 0.36 per 100g, below even eggs at USD 0.53, the cheapest animal source; chicken 0.91, pork 1.01, beef 1.91, fish 2.00). Per 50g of protein the ranking reverses at the top: pulses cost more than pork, chicken and eggs, and less than only beef and fish, because pulses provide less than 10g of protein per 100g of food against more than 20g for meat and fish. Prices are US national mean retail prices (USDA Purchase to Plate Price Tool, FNDDS 2017 to 2018 food data); they predate recent inflation, are not income-controlled, and protein is not adjusted for digestibility. Source: Drewnowski & Conrad (2024).
The same calculation can be run for the UK from published average prices that cover many retailers. Prices are ONS averages for January 2025, the last month with detailed food-item average prices; Defra Family Food unit values for the financial year 2023-24 supply the fresh pork and dried pulses prices. Protein content comes from the official UK food composition tables (CoFID 2021). Each category mean covers one to three representative items.
Per 100g of food pulses are again the cheapest source (£0.27 per 100g, below eggs at £0.56, the cheapest animal source; pork 0.69, chicken 0.80, beef 1.34, fish 1.67; boneless items only). Per 50g of protein the ranking shifts less in the UK than in the US data: chicken (£1.61) is at parity with pulses (£1.64) and pork costs only slightly more (£1.69), while eggs (£2.24), beef (£3.29) and fish (£4.21) all cost more than pulses; lamb (not shown) is the most expensive source at £7.14. Within UK pulses, dried pulses alone provide 50g of protein for about £0.61, cheaper than any category shown. Relative to pulses, every animal category costs more in these UK figures than in the US figures above; differences in price year (US 2017 to 2018), item mix and production standards can all contribute. UK prices are as-sold (raw meat, canned or dried pulses; bone-in items are priced per bone-in weight, with protein measured on the same basis), while the US prices are as-consumed. Per-protein costs are robust to that difference, but per-100g levels are not directly comparable across the two charts, and protein is again not adjusted for digestibility. Sources: ONS (2025); Defra (2025); Public Health England (2021).
Mince, meatball and burger figures are from a Tesco price snapshot, January to March 2026, one retailer and one quarter, during a period of rising meat prices in which beef rose fastest (supermarket beef prices up more than 10% year on year in the week ending 25 April 2026, lean beef mince up 23%) (GFI Europe, 2026); the mince figure compares against beef mince specifically. Milk and cream figures are from retail data (GFI Europe, 2025, based on Circana retail sales and NIQ Homescan panel data): the overall per-litre plant-milk premium (around two-thirds, shown as +67%) is mostly a branding-mix artefact, since branded-versus-branded the gap is 16% and branded plant cream is near parity (1.6% more expensive). Because percentages are relative to the animal product's price, +67% means plant-based milk costs about 1.67 times as much per litre as dairy milk; put the other way round, dairy is about 40% cheaper than plant-based milk. The Retail and Wholesale tabs above track this item-level picture with daily UK prices. Source: GFI Europe (2026, mince and meatballs); GFI Europe (2025, milk and cream).