The question of whether it is cheaper to cook from scratch or buy ready meals in the UK has become more pressing as food prices and energy costs have risen in tandem. Supermarket shelves now offer increasingly sophisticated chilled and frozen options that promise restaurant-quality flavour for less than the price of a coffee shop sandwich, while home cooking requires not only ingredient expenditure but gas, electricity, and time. To determine the genuine economics of each approach, one must examine the price per kilogram of prepared food versus raw ingredients, factor in the energy consumption of various
