Switching up the Christmas BBQ in 2025

Economic data doesn’t usually feature on the Christmas wish list, but it does have a habit of showing up at the checkout. For many households, the festive season is as much about budgets as it is about BBQs, pavlovas, and full fridges for visiting family. In a year where everyday costs have remained stubbornly high, Christmas is once again shaping up as a timely stress-test of household finances.

For our final Chart of the Month for 2025, we put the tinsel aside and take a practical look at the cost of Christmas. From the rising cost of cooking the meal itself, to shifting meat choices at the butcher, and the growing bill for a classic Kiwi Christmas spread, we examine how much more New Zealanders are paying this festive season – and where a few substitutions might help keep costs, if not spirits, a little lighter.

It’s not just certain BBQ foods that have increased in price this year – the dial has been turned up on cooking costs too.

Electricity prices rose over 12%pa in November, with longer-running quarterly data showing the fastest annual electricity cost inflation since 1989 in the September quarter.

Cooking a pav in the oven is clearly costing more, but cranking up the BBQ has seen even steeper increases in operating costs. Residential gas costs, which include both piped and bottled gas, have increased by over 17%pa in November 2025, and quarterly data shows some of the fastest gas price inflation since 2004.

The protein choice for Christmas dinner is likely to be a tougher decision than in previous years, given substantial cost inflation in 2025 for many meats. Recent Infometrics analysis of supplier costs for Foodstuffs showed a larger gain in butchery costs overall, driven by strong global demand but more limited supply.

Our analysis of prices of proteins shows that consumers might do well to consider chicken and pork/ham options this festive season – both due to lower cost per kg, but also as these two meat types have seen considerably less of an increase this year.

On a per-kilogram-purchased basis (not adjusting for bone weight or pure protein content), chicken remains the cheapest meat option available this Christmas, with a roast chicken costing below $10/kg, and the versatile chicken breast costing just under $16/kg – the seventh-lowest of the 18 key meat proteins tracked by Stats NZ.

A kilogram of roast pork is the fifth-most affordable meat, at just over $13/kg, with ham a touch higher at around $16.50/kg.

But fish, lamb, and beef are all looking relatively unaffordable in comparison, with fresh fish the most expensive protein option, at just over $47/kg, with sirloin steak close behind at over $45/kg. Steak prices have increased 27%pa so far this year, with a 15%pa price rise for mince. Lamb chops and roasts prices have increased substantially too, up 25% and 43% respectively, to around $23 and $25 respectively per kilogram.

Our now-regular analysis of Christmas costs makes for tough reading in 2025 – due to both cost inflation, and hunger fascination. Our unchanged Christmas menu options – with either a roast or a BBQ at the core – have increased by 12-18% in 2025 from last Christmas.

That increase equates to around $30-57 more for a Christmas meal overall. The BBQ meal option continues to cost the most overall, coming in at around $302 in 2025 for the main meal itself, and nearly $380 for the entire meal (including snacks and dessert).

The roast meal option has breached $200 for the main meal itself, up from $178 last year, with a total cost including snacks and dessert totalling around $275 in 2025.

Although higher meat prices have driven up the main meals, dessert costs aren’t too sweet either. Higher butter, cream, and egg prices have hit figgy pudding and pavlova costs – but it’s the fruit component that might be under review in 2025. Sultana prices for the figgy pudding have increased around 31% in 2025, and depending on what’s atop the pav, things have increased too, with kiwifruit prices up 44%pa, and strawberries up 14%pa.