The cost of Christmas is likely to jump sharply this year, with the prices of some festive staples in Irish supermarkets set to be more than 20 per cent higher than they were in 2024, analysts have warned.
As the busiest time of the year for Irish retail approaches, grocery prices have started climbing at their fastest level in almost two years, with the rate of inflation put at 6.5 per cent for the 12 months to early October, according to retail analysts Worldpanel by Numerator.
Higher prices combined with the absence of one-off relief measures for Irish consumers in the recent budget will heap “extra pressure” on families struggling to make ends meet over Christmas, Worldpanel warned.
“The next few weeks is a busy time for shoppers,” said spokeswoman Emer Healy. “With the latest budget for 2026 being announced against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, there will be more pressure on shoppers, and it may have an impact on their discretionary spending.”
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She said the end of one-off payments such as the energy credit and double child benefit, along with rising fuel and other household costs, “will put extra pressure on many families, especially as tax bands remain unchanged and some credits are no longer available.”
She noted that shoppers are increasingly relying on promotions to offset rising costs and said it would be “interesting to see how this will affect shoppers’ spending habits and the contents of their shopping baskets”. Overall, Irish shoppers are spending €145 million more on promotions than they were two years ago, according to Worldpanel.
The 6.5 per cent rate of grocery inflation is considerably lower than rates of close to 17 per cent that were recorded at the height of the cost-of-living crisis in the summer of 2023. However, the latest increases are on top of the earlier hikes, and the cumulative impact will see many households worse off by more than €3,000 over the course of a year.
Oliver Browne of University College Cork’s economics department told The Irish Times a recent cut in the price of milk products and the promise by some retailers of further cuts would only have a minimal impact on prices overall.
He said grocery inflation towards the end of the year would at best be about 5 per cent “because the cost of everything has gone up and we can’t bring things back to 2024 prices”.
He warned that, depending on the trajectory of the outbreak of avian flu spreading in some areas, the price of turkeys could climb substantially in the weeks ahead, although he stressed that is by no means certain.
“If turkey farms are impacted in the next few weeks it will mean at least some turkeys won’t have matured in time for Christmas and there could be a lot of turkey mince on our shelves early in the new year.”
He said that while Christmas is always a dear time for Irish consumers, some things will cost significantly more this year and he noted that some popular chocolates are already selling for more than 20 per cent more than they were last year. “I think that is a sign that a lot of things are going to be a lot more expensive”.
