Rural Britain is becoming a “food desert” for lower-income families as the closure of local shops and poor public transport leaves them at disproportionately high risk of hunger and cost of living pressures, new research shows.

Over half of households with an annual income of under £40,000 a year living in the countryside struggle to access affordable and healthy food including fresh fruit and vegetables, the Sheffield University study estimates.

It identifies a stark city-country divide, with families in relatively affluent rural areas at significantly higher risk of food insecurity than similar households in deprived urban neighbourhoods with high levels of poverty.

While just 7% of lower-income households in deprived urban neighbourhoods lived more than 20 minutes’ walk from the nearest shop selling fresh fruit and vegetables, this rose to 52.5% for households with identical incomes in rural areas.

Food insecurity is defined as poor access to nutritious food caused by lack of money or nearby shops, leading to meal-skipping and poor diet. About one in eight UK households were estimated in February to have experienced food insecurity.

“For ‘struggling middle’ families in rural areas, food security is not just about bank balance but physical and geographical barriers that make navigating the cost of living crisis nearly impossible,” said the study’s author, Dr Megan Blake, a senior lecturer and food security expert at Sheffield University.

“When a struggling household lives in a ‘food desert’ with no nearby shop and poor quality food options their risk of food insecurity is over 22 times higher than a household in the same income bracket that can walk five minutes to a budget supermarket,” she said.

“It’s not just about being poor. It’s about the environment punishing you for being poor. Ironically, these are the regions that grow the food we eat and are central to the UK’s food production.”

High food and energy costs, the disappearance of village stores, meagre public transport options and supermarket food logistics systems that favour cities combine to create food deserts and ratchet up the risks of food insecurity.

“‘Village life’ or ‘country way of life’ is not all it’s cracked up to be. Being financially very poor and a lack of access [to food] just do not help,” said one rural dweller interviewed in the study.

Food deserts also appear in isolated edge-of-city social housing estates and coastal areas. Community activists in Castlemilk, a suburb of Glasgow with 15,000 residents, have for years campaigned unsuccessfully for a large supermarket – typically the best guarantee of cheap, fresh produce – to be built locally.

The Sheffield study, based on a survey of 14,158 households in England and Scotland earning under £40,000, says persistent household food insecurity “exposes deep cracks in the structural foundations of our communities” and is linked to poor mental and physical health, stress and social stigma.

The study calls for a national review of areas with poor access to food shops, focusing on rural areas, post-industrial and coastal communities, and support for low-cost and subsidised food retail alternatives such as food clubs and social supermarkets.

UK food costs have risen as a whole by 50% since 2021 but prices are significantly higher in food deserts. Research by South Cotswolds food bank in 2024 found the cost of a basic basket of food was up to 62% higher in village convenience stores than in the nearest market town low-cost superstore.

However, food insecurity was not reducible to income alone, the study found. While lower-income households in full-time work were far more likely to be above the poverty line than those reliant solely on welfare benefits, both groups experienced similar levels of food insecurity.

A government spokesperson said: “Our goal is to build a food system that ensures everyone can access safe, affordable and healthy food.

“Through outcomes set out in our Good Food Cycle we are tackling food insecurity head-on, improving access to good food in deprived communities and delivering on our manifesto commitment to end mass dependence on food parcels.

“We have already expanded free breakfast clubs, widened free school meals to half a million more children, and proudly removed the two-child limit on benefits, lifting 450,000 children out of poverty.”