How has the cost of feeding New Zealand children well changed from 2018 to 2023? Monthly price changes of a modelled lower-cost healthy diet.

New Zealand (NZ) specific research assessing price changes of accessible lower-cost foods which also meet healthy eating guidelines for children is sparse. We aimed to develop an Excel™ tool to retrospectively assess weekly costs of commonly purchased lower-cost foods for children and households from 2018, and update in close to real-time. Lower-cost foods from the monthly reports from StatsNZ were grouped into food baskets that met eating guidelines, nutrient and energy requirements by age and sex. Repeated iterations created healthy food baskets from 62 lower-cost foods, prices were tracked, and costs for households and individuals were compared to household income. For a household of two adults and two children of fixed age (7y female, 14y male), substantial (27%) increases in the price of the food basket were recorded between 2021 and 2023. When the nutritional requirements of children as they age were considered, there was a 54% ($5,663) increase in the low-cost healthy food basket price of $16,083/year in 2023 compared to $10,420/year in 2018 when the female was 2y and male 9y. The continual increase in food prices contributes to substantial financial shortfalls for households receiving government support and the potential food insecurity many face.