Brits still committed to healthier spending in 2023 despite cost-of-living crisis

• Health food brands like Protein Works and Huel see the largest increase in purchases this January
• While Deliveroo and Just Eat see spending decline during the UK’s new year health kick
• Spend at health and wellbeing retailers, Boots and Superdrug, declines post-Christmas rush

New spend data from payment and cashback app Cheddar reveals that UK consumers remain committed to spending on their health and well-being in the new year, despite cost of living pressures.

Analysis of this spend data sourced from 20,000 Cheddar app users, between December 1st 2022 to January 15th 2023, shows transactions at health food retailers increased significantly in the new year. Protein Works saw the biggest increase, with a 180% uptick in purchases, followed by Huel (100%) and Myvitamins (86%). Muscle Foods similarly saw purchases increase by a fifth (21%) between December and January, with the average consumer spending almost £40 per order.

Online takeaway food platforms also saw spending decline in the first half of January. Uber Eats saw a 35% decrease in purchases, followed by Deliveroo (34%) and Just Eat (25%), suggesting consumers change their attitude towards eating sensibly, avoiding the risk of derailing New Year diets by consuming fast foods and takeaways. Across all 3 companies the average spend per order is between £20-23 in January.

However, looking more broadly across health and wellbeing retail we can see that spend at retailers like Boots, Superdrug and Holland and Barrett’s have decreased in both transactions and order value since December. This could be due to a spike in shopping pre-Christmas that is returning to normal levels in January. In particular Boots and Superdrug, known for their beauty gift sets at Christmas, saw at least a 40% decline in transactions in the new year.

A similar story is seen at top sportswear retailers such as Sports Direct, JD Sports, Nike and Adidas where, despite the UK’s health kick, both number of transactions and order value have dropped across all these retailers between December and January.

Cheddar’s data has the ability to identify broad retail trends month to month as well as short-term impacts at individual retailers in the UK. Over 20,000 consumers now connect their bank accounts to the app, providing third-party consent to real-time data on consumer spend. With the app rapidly gaining new users daily, these retail and consumer insights are only set to grow.

Tariq Zahid, CEO & Co-founder at Cheddar says:

“At Cheddar, we understand the value of spend data like ours and it’s always so interesting to dive deeper into those figures around key commercial or seasonal events – the new year being a big one for retail. We all know by now that the ‘New year, New me’ statements are everywhere in January, but we wanted to see if Brits are still putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to making healthier changes – particularly during a cost of living crisis.

Not only does our consumer spend data confirm that health foods are where Brits are choosing to invest in the new year, it shows that takeaway food spend has dropped off slightly too alongside that. Healthy eating wins out this January!”