‘£98! At Aldi!’

As food inflation soars in the UK, social media fills with shoppers reacting with disbelief and despair. Hannah Twiggs finds out how families are reshaping their habits in response

- Hannah Twiggs

A few years ago, £100 would fill a trolley.

Now it barely fills a basket. Across social media, shoppers are posting photos of their groceries with captions somewhere between disbelief and despair. The so-called “£100 weekly shop” - once shorthand for a manageable middle-class routine - has become a symbol of how far our money no longer goes. What’s replaced it is far more chaotic: bulk-buys, frozen finds, endless top-ups and a growing sense that food shopping has turned from a domestic ritual into an act of survival.

For Kimberley Coke, a working mum of two in Hertfordshire, the notion of a single weekly shop now feels impossible. “Our routine has changed as we’re out so much with busy family commitments and kids’ football,” she says - she commutes to London while her husband works in the next town over. “The food shop is sporadic for four. We tend to do one massive, expensive shop a month, but then we’re constantly playing top-up.”

“I tend to shop at Sainsbury’s but do top-up shops at Aldi and Asda and get frozen stuff for the kids at the Food Warehouse,” she explains. “They do a good, healthy frozen protein range, which lasts for ages in the freezer.” Even Costco, once her way to stock up and save, can backfire: “It’s amazing for bulk shopping - high quality and super nice stuff. But, God, I end up spending a few hundred pounds in a flash!”

What Coke describes mirrors a wider national trend. According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), families are returning to a hybrid routine of smaller weekly “big” shops followed by multiple top-ups.