How much does the minimum food basket cost: price by year and what it includes
The minimum food basket for one person in December 2023 cost 5,890.6 rubles per month. This is the latest value of this Rosstat series on the website, on average across Russia: less than two hundred rubles per day for bread, milk, meat, cereals and vegetables. For a family of three people such a basket costs 17,672 rubles per month. Over three years, since the end of 2020, it has become more expensive by 1,435 rubles, i.e. by 32%.
Next we will examine how the price of the basket has changed over the years, what the money is spent on and how it relates to the subsistence minimum. All charts are interactive on the basket pages, links under each.
What is the minimum food basket
The conditional (minimum) food basket compiled by Rosstat is not based on what people actually buy, but on a norm: how much bread, cereals, potatoes, milk, meat, fish, eggs, sugar and oil an adult needs per month to live without excess. The quantities are fixed, and prices are taken each month from observations in stores.
Therefore the basket is good as a gauge. It answers the simple question: how much the same modest diet costs today and how much it cost before. There are no delicacies, ready-made meals or coffee in it, so the actual receipt is higher for almost everyone.
Cost of the minimum food basket by year
According to Rosstat data at the end of each year the basket cost:
| Year | Cost of the basket, rubles per month | Annual growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 4,456.0 | 9.6% |
| 2021 | 5,234.8 | 17.7% |
| 2022 | 5,562.6 | 4.3% |
| 2023 | 5,890.6 | 6.6% |
Rosstat calculates the annual growth up to December of the previous year, according to its methodology, so it does not always match the difference of ruble amounts in adjacent rows.
The toughest year here is 2021: plus 17.7% over twelve months. By comparison, all food products together rose in the consumer price index by 10.62% at that time. The basket grew more than one and a half times faster, and the reason is visible: the share of vegetables and fruits in its cost that year increased from 17.0% to 21.1%. In 2022, the growth, on the contrary, slowed to 4.3%, and the share of vegetables fell to 14.7%.
The table by year and percentage change is available on the basket page "Cost and change of the cost of the conditional (minimum) food basket".
What makes up the cost of the basket
The largest share of money in the basket goes to bread, cereals and pasta: 26.4% of the cost in 2023, which is about 1,555 rubles per month. In second place are milk and dairy products, 21.0% (approximately 1,237 rubles), and in third place meat products, 19.1% (around 1,125 rubles). Fruit and vegetables accounted for 14.4%, which is roughly 848 rubles.
The rest in small shares: butter and fats 5.5%, fish 4.8%, eggs 3.4%, other products 3.4%, sugar 2.0%.
More interesting is how the shares change from year to year. Vegetables and fruit made up 21.1% of the basket cost in 2021, and a year later only 14.7%. Meat slowly but steadily rose over four years from 17.4% to 19.1% without any decline. Eggs in 2023 jumped from 2.2% to 3.4%: in rubles this is almost two hundred rubles per month for just eggs in the minimal diet.
See all nine groups of products by year in the chart "Structure of the cost of the conditional (minimal) food basket".
Minimum set and subsistence minimum
The subsistence minimum per capita in 2023 was 14,375 rubles per month. The minimum set of food products at the end of the same year cost 5,890.6 rubles, i.e., 41% of the subsistence minimum. In 2020 the share was 39%, in 2021 it was 45%: in the year of strong food price increases the set "ate" noticeably more.
The link here is indirect. Since 2021 the subsistence minimum is calculated not from the basket but from the median income, so its growth is not directly tied to the price of the set. But the comparison is useful: it shows how much remains for everything else. With an income at the subsistence minimum level, after food from the minimum set a person in 2023 had about 8.5 thousand rubles per month left for housing, transport, clothing, medicines and communication.
In 2026 the subsistence minimum per capita for Russia is 18,939 rubles, for working‑age people 20,644, for children 18,371, for pensioners 16,288. How it varies by region is explained in the article "Subsistence minimum in 2026 by region", and you can compare your region with others in the regional ranking of subsistence minimums.
Food in the large consumer basket
Rosstat has a second, broader set: a fixed set of consumer goods and services. In addition to food it includes clothing, medicines, household chemicals, transport, utilities. At the end of 2023 it cost 21,487 rubles per month, of which food 7,096.8 rubles, non‑food goods 6,705.6, services 7,684.6.
The food component of the fixed set is more expensive than the minimum set by 1,206 rubles: it contains more items and the choice is wider. The minimum diet costs about 83% of it.
Food in the fixed set became more expensive over three years, rising from 5,458.3 to 7,096.8 rubles, services from 6,354.0 to 7,684.6. The full table is on the page "Cost and change in cost of the fixed set of consumer goods and services".
What happened to food prices after 2023
The latest values for the minimum food basket are not yet on the website: the last published one relates to December 2023. How food prices have risen since then can be seen from the consumer price index for food products:
- 2023: food prices increased by 8.16% over the year;
- 2024: by 11.05%, the fastest growth in recent years;
- 2025: by 5.24%;
- January–August 2026: by 2.8% since the beginning of the year.
From the end of 2023 to August 2026, food prices overall rose by roughly 20%. In 2026 there were three months when food became cheaper: April (99.8% of March), May (99.15%) and August (99.74%). Two of the three fell at the end of spring.
See the month‑by‑month dynamics on the page consumer price index by month, and let the inflation calculator work out how much money from 2023 is needed today to buy the same items.
Questions and answers
How much does the minimum food basket cost per month?
According to the latest Rosstat data on the website, 5,890.6 rubles per person per month at the end of 2023. This is an average for Russia, without accounting for regional differences.
How much does the minimum food basket cost for a family?
For three people the minimum basket amounts to 17,672 rubles per month, for four people 23,562 rubles. This is a simple multiplication: Rosstat calculates the basket for one person.
What is included in the minimum food basket?
Bread, cereals and pasta, milk and dairy products, meat, fish, butter and fats, eggs, sugar, vegetables and fruits, as well as other food items. More than a quarter of the cost is accounted for by bread and cereals.
How does the minimum basket differ from the consumer basket?
The minimum basket consists only of food and is used to track the price of a modest diet. The fixed basket is broader: it includes clothing, medicines, services and utility tariffs. In 2023 the first cost 5,890.6 rubles, the second 21,487 rubles.
Why did the basket become so much more expensive in 2021?
Vegetables and fruits saw the strongest price increase: their share of the basket cost rose from 17.0% to 21.1% over the year. As a result, the basket grew by 17.7% while overall food price inflation was 10.62%.
Brief
- The minimum basket of food per person at the end of 2023 cost 5,890.6 rubles per month, which is 41% of the subsistence minimum.
- Since 2020 the basket has become 32% more expensive, the strongest increase was in 2021, at 17.7%.
- The largest share of money goes to bread and cereals, dairy products and meat, together two thirds of the cost.
- After 2023 food prices rose by about 20% according to the price index, and in 2026 the growth slowed to 2.8% over eight months.
Source of all figures: Rosstat.