Why the British are addicted to meal deals
Tomorrow at noon, Lizzie Proctor will walk into her usual Tesco supermarket in Salisbury, southern England, to buy a roast chicken wrap, a bottle of raspberry Lucozade, and a Twix sandwich, all for £3.60 (€4.30) thanks to the meal deal, the meal deal offered by supermarkets. For seven years, she's been eating the same thing almost every day of the week.
“I love it,” enthuses the 28-year-old. “The wrap is just delicious.” In fact, she loves the formula so much that she has a tattoo of the wrap on her right ankle, with “Tesco Meal Deal” written above it (she’s a tattoo artist by trade).
“I thought, why not? People have tattoos of things they like, things that excite them, and it’s true that I’m a fan of this meal.”
Lizzie Proctor's passion may seem strange, but it's just a slightly extreme example of what's happening in the country: the UK is obsessed with its meal deal . In 2024, Britons spent £6.2 billion [€7.4 billion] on this type of formula, reveals market analysis specialist Kantar. That's almost double the figure in 2022, reaching an average of more than 73 meal deals per person per year last year.
On TikTok, videos demonstrating how to maximize the formula can garner over 2 million views. Comedian Brett Domino even turned it into a song, Lunchtime Lover , an anthem that encourages you to “grab whatever your heart desires.”
A main course, a snack, and a drink for less than 5 pounds—the country is hooked. But it raises all sorts of questions: How can we make the most of it? How can we outsmart the system? Is the phenomenon worsening obesity in the country ? What kind of person would opt for coconut water?
While part of the success can be explained, in 2022, by the return of employees to offices after the lockdowns, the craze for the formula above all betrays a nation hit by a cost of living crisis, which it is trying to overcome by rushing to buy good deals.
At first glance, this meal deal represents a significant saving. At Tesco, which offers the country's most popular meal deal, it costs £3.60 with a loyalty card: if you buy the duck wrap with hoisin sauce, which costs £3, a Kind protein bar for £2.55, and an Emmi latte for £2.75, you'll have saved £4.70.
So take Waitrose [the middle-class favorite], where I love going: thanks to their 5-pound deal, you can save 6.15 pounds [7.30 euros] by getting the Glo smoked salmon and rice salad (5.15 pounds), the Mockingbird raw green smoothie (3.05 pounds), and the Taiko chicken katsu bites (2.95 pounds). Why do I love it so much? Because for 5 pounds, you walk out with 11.15 pounds [13.30 euros] worth of food, and there's nothing more exquisite than a bargain.
Yet these savings are illusory. “To me, it doesn’t sound like a bargain,” says John Butler, a former Tesco manager who now works in consulting. Supermarkets inflate the price of snacks and drinks – sold individually – “compared to the unit price of the same product sold in a pack elsewhere in the store.” At Sainsbury’s [the country’s second-largest supermarket chain], for example, a 45g pack of McCoy’s Salt and Vinegar crisps is listed at £2.20 in the £3.75 deal. Yet for just 15 pence extra, you could buy six 25g packs, or a total of 150g.
It was the pharmacy chain Boots that launched the main course, snack, drink deal in October 1999, at 2.50 pounds, the same as 5.47 pounds [6.50 euros] today, as the big chains were leaving city centres to open hypermarkets on the outskirts.
At that time, supermarkets ignored this market and left it to sandwich shops, coffee chains, and, oddly enough, pharmacies. Pret A Manger briefly tried offering a £5 deal (which lasted a month), but quickly abandoned it because it wasn't profitable enough. None of [discount supermarkets] Lidl and Aldi offer them. This is because the deal is no small feat.
The big chains have a big advantage: Most manufacturers of chips, protein bars and drinks pay to be part of the meal deal , and see their sales increase in return.
This formula has become a pillar of supermarket strategy. Because "no one does their weekly shopping at lunchtime, all you have to do is advertise the meal deal at the store entrance and customers flock there."
The most intriguing aspect of this phenomenon—considering the 20 million possible combinations at Tesco alone—is our choices. Scrutinizing Britons' tastes reveals some alarming eating habits. One popular combination—a spicy chicken wrap, a can of Monster energy drink, and a Mars bar—contains a staggering 117 grams of sugar, almost four times the recommended daily intake. In fact, Tesco's two top-selling drinks in meal deals are Coke and Red Bull.
UK weight-loss enthusiasts—or perhaps just forty-somethings who've discovered their muscles need protein—have recently been turning their attention to some rather unusual snacks. At Waitrose, the most popular combo consists of a steak and caramelized onion sandwich (21.6 grams of protein), a Mockingbird smoothie, and chicken katsu bites—chicken in batter with mayonnaise—which contain 13 grams of protein.
In 2024, Tesco's top spot goes to the trio of Coke, a chicken club sandwich (29.9 grams of protein), and a pot of eggs (11.3 grams). And cream and onion crisps and KitKats can go back to their old ways; what consumers prefer is two hard-boiled eggs without the shell, sold in a plastic pot.
If the meal deal is a window onto the British soul, we have to face the facts: our national obsession is to spend as little as possible to eat as much protein as possible at lunchtime.
