Are heatwaves making it harder to eat healthy food?

Are heatwaves making it harder to eat healthy food? Food Foundation Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer Tilda Ferree examines the implications on food prices after England recorded the hottest June on record 

England has had its warmest June on record, according to the Met Office, with temperatures rising above 33C in the South-East.

It’s not just temperature rises that have made headlines this month, with food inflation also reaching the highest 12 month rate since February 2024.

In June 2025, the Food Foundation's Basic Basket Tracker revealed that the expense associated with a standard food basket that meets broad nutritional requirements has increased by approximately 22.1% compared to its cost in June 2022.

The British Retail Consortium have suggested that recent hot weather and rising food prices are linked, with fruit and vegetable prices in particular increasing due to the hot, dry weather reducing harvest yields.

The impact on fruit and vegetable prices is particularly concerning, as already healthier foods are on average more than twice as expensive per calorie as less healthy foods, with healthier food increasing in price at twice the rate in the past two years.

Families across the income spectrum are affected by high food prices, and most are not eating enough fruit and vegetables, which are essential for a diet that fosters health and helps prevent the development of food-related diseases.

Government data published in the last month shows that less than one in 10 children aged 11 to 18 years-old eat the recommended five portions of fruit or vegetables a day. For adults, just one on six achieve this.

And lower-income families are disproportionately impacted by the high cost of healthy food: the poorest fifth of the population, would need to spend 45% of their disposable income on food, rising to 70% for those households with children, to afford the Government recommended healthy diet.  This is compared to just 12% for the least deprived fifth.

Families shouldn’t have to choose between having enough to eat and eating well. But we know that when household budgets are stretched, families are driven to cut back on healthier foods like fruit & vegetables.

There are many reasons given for the rise in food prices, including recent increases in National Minimum Wage and national insurance contributions, and it is worrying that these costs are being passed down to consumers.

But whilst these changes are recent, the longer-term impact of more extreme weather events should also not be ignored. The Met Office have warned that human driven climate-change is increasing the change of extreme heat events in the UK.

The Food Foundation is supporting a consortium of academics, campaigners and analysts* to assess the extent of recent climate-induced food price shocks on UK food supplies, prices and production.

Together we’ll be looking at the impact of these shocks on British farmers and the health of lower-income households, and advocating for policies that will enable the UK to build climate-change resilience and reduce the impacts on food prices in the future.

*The University of Aberdeen, University of Sheffield, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and The Food Foundation are participating in the research, in collaboration with the Met Office, as part of MACCHub.