(Meal) deal or no deal

As prices rise for the lunch staple, Katie Rosseinsky makes the case that it’s a great barometer for the cost of living crisis

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The meal deal is a banal but beloved fixture of life in the UK.

It promises harried office workers the chance to spend a few minutes of their lunch hour selecting their preferred combination of sandwich, snack and drink for a price that’s generally somewhere just above the £3 mark. You might have to scuttle back to your desk immediately afterwards to scoff your purchases while scrolling through emails, but during those brief moments in the meal deal aisle, the possibilities feel infinite. Now, however, this national institution is in crisis.

It might feel like it's been around forever, but the meal deal is actually a pretty modern invention. Boots was the first to introduce the concept of the sandwich-drink-snack combo to the British high street back in 1999, initially rolling out the offer as a trial in just 16 stores around the country, priced at £2.50. Where the pharmacy went, supermarkets followed, and over the next few years, all the big hitters started to roll out their own versions.

Slightly naff, perennially underwhelming but still somehow appealing, the meal deal has all the requisite qualities of an unlikely British icon. Tourists are almost universally baffled by it (in fact, the whole setup is probably anathema to the various European nations that tend to elevate lunch to an art form, rather than squeezing it in al desko). There have been plenty of Facebook groups and Instagram accounts dedicated to the sport of “rating” the food combinations of others. Dry-looking ham sandwich with a bottle of water and a packet of ready salted crisps? Prepare to have your midday meal eviscerated.