The Great Christmas Food Showdown
Black Friday is done and dusted, and with barely time to catch a breath we’re into the Christmas run up. Thoughts are definitely turning to the big day itself, and the important question of what to put on the festive table is very much top of mind.
In fact, Synthesio data shows that the volume of social mentions around Christmas food increased by 50% during 30 Nov - 7 Dec compared to the previous 7 days.
As ever we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to Christmas food, and the main retailers have launched hundreds (quite literally) of new items to tickle the nations’ tastebuds.
increase in Christmas food related social mentions during 30 Nov - 7 Dec compared to the week prior
So, as we do every year, we’ve hand picked a select list of items available in the 10 major Supermarkets - Aldi, ASDA, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco, and Waitrose - and put all 40 items in front of a representative sample of UK consumers to see which triumph in a football tournament style survey.
Why did we choose these 40, we hear you cry? Well, we tend to look for products that make us double-take, or nod with satisfaction, or are clever twists on tradition, or occasionally, honestly, just make us go WTF?! That’s why for this year we’ve included one product that’s not retailer specific (see below).
Food themes this year
Last year was the year of bao buns, crumpets and dippy cheese. This year, bao buns are still there, but not to the extent that they any longer stand out. Crumpets are toast! Oozy cheese pervades.
This year there’s definitely still a trend for luxe ingredient upgrades (Beef > Wagyu; Seafood > Lobster).
Although, interestingly when we asked our always-on community, The Beat, how they felt about Christmas spending and food, the consensus was that households are simplifying Christmas and looking for good value and restrained food choices - so we’ll see if the luxe options shine through this year.
Luxe aside, there’s also an evolution of the hot honey trend from 2024, now manifesting as hot maple. Gingerbread is big which is unsurprising when Synthesio data shows that a large volume of social content centres on gingerbread-themed holiday recipes, and people are treating gingerbread as a spice for injecting “instant Christmas” in any food through its flavour, shape and visual cues. And lastly, the pistachio trend of earlier in the year persists.
of consumers agree that they'll be trying to spend less on Christmas this year vs 2024
The issue of cost is very interesting. We know that 44% of consumers agree that they’ll be trying to spend less on Christmas this year vs last. We’ve tested a couple of eye-wateringly expensive products, but we’ve also seen a nod to tighter belts with the launch of some really excellent Christmas dinner in a box type-products at value prices. With that in mind, unlike last year, we tested the products with the price attached to see if that had any bearing on choice.
Finally, Christmas is not renowned as a time for restraint. You’ll see separate posts coming soon about Less Healthy Food (LHF) legislation and whether consumers are getting the message yet. However, our contribution is to have tested a decent selection of sweeter (potentially less healthy?) treats to see if consumers even care about this stuff, or whether they prefer to press pause on healthy eating over Christmas, and subject themselves to a monk like existence in January instead.
The buffet of interesting results
- Aldi’s Ultimate Christmas Dinner in a Box (£29.95 serves 4) wins the battle of the complete meal solutions (6th place), versus ASDA’s Slow Cooked Turkey with All The Trimmings Box (£37.97 serves 6-8) which ranks 18th overall.
- Christmas flavour crisp-type snacks are not well regarded. The Gingerbread Dorito just outperforms Co-op’s Roast Duck & Spiced Clementine Crisps, but they both languish near the bottom in 34th and 36th place respectively.
- Despite the large volume of social content relating to it, Gingerbread as a trendy flavour didn’t fare that well overall. Of the four products we tested that were gingerbread forward, the top performer was ASDA’s Gingerbread Chocolate Sponge with Melting Man which polled in 15th position.
- Aldi’s Raspberry and Pistachio Yule Log takes top spot amongst the dessert/sweet products (2nd place overall), but is preferred more by women (1st place) than men (7th place).
- Talking of gender splits, the much talked about Tom Kerridge and M&S flagship product - Fillet of British Beef Wellington by Tom - performs well overall despite the hefty price-tag (5th). Males place it in 6th – behind 5 other meat products - while Females rank it 11th behind a top 10 containing four desserts. For transparency sake, despite fixating on the price of Tom’s Beef Wellington it’s worth noting that it’s already sold out online.
- Year after year it’s obvious that product naming teams love a dad joke, so a quick nod to our favourite this year – Sainsbury’s Irish Coffee Tira-Merry-Su (groan!!!) .
And, the winners are
1st place: Waitrose - British Wagyu Beef Sirloin Joint with Beer Malt Glaze & a Herb Crumb (£59-72)
2nd place: Aldi - Raspberry and Pistachio Yule Log (£9.99)
3rd place: Morrisons - Firecracker Pigs in Blankets (10 for £3)
(based on their promise scores**)
Here's the full suite of products we tested:
Source: Ipsos Digital Duel survey. Base: 375 Online UK adults aged 18-65, 3rd December 2025
In Conclusion
So, it seems price isn’t the be all and end all this year, with Waitrose’ Wagyu beef sirloin joint taking first place, and, despite the absence of unhealthy food in the ads (thanks to the impending LHF regulations), the public are still craving the sweet stuff with Aldi’s yule log taking second place.
Whether it’s sweet or savoury, frugal or extravagant, traditional or innovative, there’s something for everyone in this year’s offerings. Plenty to grab the attention and a couple to scratch your head over.
But, the big question is, does winning the festive food face-off set you up for supermarket sales success, and how are the ads impacting purchase behaviour? We’ll be tracking the impact of festive campaigns right up to the big day, so keep an eye out on the Race to Christmas site for more findings and insights.
About the Products
Ipsos Duel: Consumers make quick purchase decisions (typically under 7 seconds). Duel offers a gamified research solution mimicking this process by using tournament-style choice exercises to measure preference and decision speed. This versatile tool works with various marketing elements such as claims, varieties, names, and visuals.
Synthesio: Synthesio supports consumer-centric decisions at scale by collecting, structuring, and analysing billions of online conversations.
Ipsos Fast Facts: Ipsos.Digital’s ad-hoc survey solution FastFacts offers the simplest, quickest way to conduct consumer research in over 40 markets.
Source: Ipsos Digital Duel survey. Base: 375 Online UK adults aged 18-65, 28th November - 3rd December 2025
Technical Note: Ipsos interviewed a sample of 375 adults aged 18-65 across the UK. Each respondent completed the Duel tournament for 16 of the 40 tested innovations with block rotation ensuring all 40 innovations were each randomly tested 150 times across the entire sample.
Polling was conducted online on the 3rd December 2025. Gender, age and region quotas were applied in order to broadly replicate the spread of these demographics within the UK. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.
*For details on the Duel methodology see here
** Promise is a measure combining Preference – which item is chosen out of each pair presented, and Punch – the time taken to make the choice
