Brits spend thousands eating out

Britons are more than happy to foot the pricey bill of eating out every day of the year, new research reveals.

Market analysts Datamonitor finds in its survey of 944 Brits that they ate a core meal – breakfast, lunch or dinner – outside of the home an average of 365.2 per year.

The cost of this edible expense works out at £1,224 a year, the second highest amount in Europe, lagging just behind Italy, where the average is £1,265 a year, according to the Out-of-Home Food and Drinks Consumption report.

The primary reason for Brits eating so many meals out of the home, which includes sandwiches for lunch at work, is a lack of time to prepare and cook food.

With workers' hectic lives showing no signs of slowing down, Datamonitor predicts that 5.2 billion extra core meals and snacks will be eaten outside the home in the UK by 2010, compared with the current figures.

In addition to the costly out-of-home core meals, Brits also eat an average of 267.8 snacks outside the home, over a year.

Matthew Adams, consumer markets analyst for Datamonitor, said: "Eating habits are evolving to meet the pace and structure of daily life.

"Consumers are responding to nutritional needs and the demands of daily life by missing meals, changing the times at which they eat and even changing the type of products they eat at each occasion."

Restaurants and takeaways are increasingly becoming the dinner-dining mode of choice for many Brits, who do not mind the additional cost of paying for pre-prepared food.

By having more meals at home and preparing their own lunch for work, Brits could save hundreds of pounds every year.