Morgan would love to buy lactose-free milk and cheese, but simply can’t afford it. The 28-year-old from Southampton has IBS, lactose intolerance and gastroparesis, a disorder affecting the stomach’s nerves and muscles, and so tries to follow a specialist low-fibre, low-fat, largely dairy-free diet.
But the soaring cost of lactose-free products and a food budget of just £40-£50 a week means they often have to do without. “I just can’t justify the cost of them for the symptom reduction that I get,” Morgan says. “There are other foods that cause much bigger problems that I have to prioritise.”
Morgan is a wheelchair user who relies on carers to take them shopping once a week, so they are not able to shop around. “I have to spend quite a lot of time on it, figuring out what do I have in the cupboards already, because I can’t afford to buy another packet [of anything] until I need it,” says Morgan.
Morgan is far from alone. About 2.3 million people have a food allergy or intolerance, or coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition that leaves people unable to eat gluten. For many, avoiding the ingredients their bodies cannot tolerate is increasingly unaffordable.
Victoria, from the north-east, says the cost of living crisis is affecting families like hers disproportionately. “We are frankly struggling, despite my partner being in full-time work and I in part-time work. Our food bills are off the scale at the moment because of the way in which we have to buy.”
She has two sons and collectively the family are allergic to wheat/gluten, dairy, eggs, sesame, fish, peanut, cashews and almonds. With costs spiralling, their shopping options are limited. The price of the brand of junior soya milk her children can have has jumped from £1.45 to £1.90 and Victoria says everything she buys is considerably more expensive than standard, non-“free from” items.
“I feel like [free-from food] is rising at a faster rate, so it’s beginning to feel a bit exploitative actually,” she says. “Allergy families have enough to deal with, trying to keep safe, navigating a world that isn’t always supportive of people living with allergies, keeping on top of medication, dealing with the anxiety that arises from having to live this way. Being impacted financially – and disproportionately – feels like an extra smack in the face we just [don’t] need.”
Charlotte, 26, from Preston, also says her weekly shop has become very expensive since she was diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2021. She works for the students’ union at the University of Central Lancashire and, with a weekly budget of £100 to spend on food for her and her partner, she often goes without certain “free-from” products. “We just don’t buy things in order to try and keep the cost as similar to the previous shops that we did before I was diagnosed,” she says.
“When you can buy three or four packs of normal biscuits for one pack of gluten-free biscuits, it’s just not worth it. So I tend to only buy the very basics that you can’t really go without, like gluten-free bread, flour and pasta.”
But buying budget brands is not really an option. “When you’re looking for gluten-free food [in the normal aisles], they’re often not the cheapest brands that are the gluten-free ones,” says Charlotte. “So it’s extra costs that other people don’t have.”
Back in Southampton, Morgan says high prices mean they are having to take more risks with their food. “I’ve had to change the bread I buy to ordinary loaves because of cost,” they say. “The preservatives in ordinary bread are really hard on my stomach. The freshly baked loaves are much better, but also much more expensive and short-lived.”
