Which supermarket has the cheapest mince pies 2022? Christmas selections ranked amid UK cost of living crisis

It’s the festive season, which can only mean one thing: it’s time to eat your weight in mince pies.

Every year sees a wide variety of the tasty treats appear on supermarket shelves. From the regular pastry casing stuffed to the gunnels with mincemeat, to the more unusual combinations (Heston Blumenthal’s pear and fig mince pies in a cheese pastry, anyone?), you’re almost guaranteed a winning combination of sweetness and butteryness.

This Christmas is going to be a slightly different one for many households across the UK given the cost of living crisis. Food prices, in particular, have soared dramatically throughout the course of the year, making it much harder for us all to afford the essentials.

To help people have the best Christmas experience possible for the lowest price, NationalWorld has written a piece on which of the major supermarkets are currently offering the cheapest Christmas dinners. Retailers are themselves offering meal deals that may be helpful to those on a budget.

But we also wanted to see how mince pies fared in price. So, here’s a quick guide to how much the festive favourites cost at the UK’s biggest stores.

Why is food more expensive?

Food has become a lot more expensive this year largely as a result of the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion of its western neighbour - one of the world’s key breadbaskets - threw the supply of many foods and ingredients into doubt. With its civilian infrastructure being battered by the Kremlin’s forces and its ports blockaded, very little of its produce has made it out.

Vital food ingredients like wheat, barley, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil have been particularly affected. Given their presence in many key food items - from bread to mayonnaise - as well as their use in animal feed, the price of pretty much every food item has gone up.

This inflation has also hit mince pies. Flour was an average of 28.1% more expensive year-on-year in October’s CPI, while butter had risen 29.7%.

Fruit (10.3%) and sugar (10.9%) have also both rocketed in cost compared to this time last year. Factoring in the energy crisis, which is hitting manufacturing in every sector, and the cost of mince pies is likely to have soared.

Add into the mix that most people in the UK have suffered a real-terms drop in their incomes as a result of inflation, and those sweet treats have been pushed slightly further out of reach.

Which supermarket has the cheapest mince pies?

NationalWorld has looked at the mince pie offerings of all the major retailers which have an online presence (sorry, Lidl), to find out which one offers the cheapest mince pies. Cheapest doesn’t mean best value, so we’re putting together a separate piece rating the best of the best mince pies for Christmas 2022.

We’ve gone for the cheapest shelf price. Some other mince pie packs might come in at a better price per weight if bulk is what you’re after.

All prices were correct at the time of writing. Here are this year’s contenders:

• Tesco Mince Pies 6 Pack - 99p (16p each)
• Sainsbury’s Mince Pies x6 - £1.25 (21p each)
• Asda The Bakery 6 Mince Pies - £1.25 (20.8p each)
• Aldi Holly Lane Deep Filled Mince Pies 6 pack - 99p (down from £1.09/ 17p each)
• Morrisons Mince Pies 6 pack - £1.25 (20.8p each)
• Waitrose Essential 6 Shortcrust Mince Pies - £1.25 (20.8p each)
• M&S 6 All Butter Mince Pies - £2 (25.7p each)

WINNERS: Tesco & Aldi