Low-income families in Ireland need to spend up to one third of their weekly income to afford a healthy food basket that meets nutritional needs, a new report has found.
The Safefood research published on Tuesday breaks down the average spend of different households needed to produce a balanced selection of weekly meals.
The report found households reliant on social welfare spend a larger percentage of their take home income on food compared to households with an employed adult.
For a family of two parents on state benefits and two children, where the older child is in secondary school, the total cost of a weekly food basket is €198 or 33 per cent of their take home income.
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For a one-parent household relying on State benefits, with two children of preschool and primary school age, a healthy food shop costs €122 or 28 per cent of take home income.
This was 12 per cent higher than if the adult was employed earning the national minimum wage.
For households with a teenager at home, costs were more than 20 per cent higher than those of a household with children of preschool and primary school age.
Among pensioners, the total weekly healthy food basket cost ranged from €72 for a single pensioner to €90 for a couple.
According to Central Statistics Office (CSO) data published earlier this month, food price inflation in Ireland rose to a 20-month high of 5 per cent in August.
Meat, breads and cereals, milk, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables account for the largest share of the food basket.
Typically, families on low income are more likely to be exposed to unhealthy food environments, which can contribute to higher levels of excess weight and corresponding health complications like heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
A recent Unicef report cites figures from the Childhood Obesity Surveillance initiative which shows that one in five primary school children in the Republic are overweight or obese. That figure rises to more than one in four in Deis schools, where children are more likely to experience socio-economic disadvantage.
Dr Aileen McGloin, director of nutrition with Safefood, said the report reflected a “worrying trend”.
“For households with children, food shopping is often the only flexible part of their spend. Many families are being forced to choose cheaper and often nutritionally poor food items to keep food spending within their means.”
She said the research consistently showed the challenge for families on low income was “trying to balance the cost of a healthy food basket against the cost of meeting other needs and expenses”.
