We lab tested 600 of the ten most popular meals from independent takeaways in Great Britain. Here’s what we found.

How to read this chart: The ten types of meals sampled are positioned on the vertical axis. Each square represents a sampled meal, positioned on the horizontal axis according to its calorie content.

The calorie content of 'regular' or 'medium' takeaway meals varied significantly for the same dish

How to read this chart: This series of charts depicts the range of calorie content for each type of takeaway meal. The dots furthest apart represent the highest and lowest values. The white shaded boxes overlayed on the distribution represent the 25th to 75th centile range.

‘Regular' or 'medium' pepperoni pizzas purchased for this research contained between approximately 600 and 2,300 calories.

Similarly, for battered cod and chips, there was approximately a 1,300-calorie difference between the portion with the lowest and highest number of calories.

While the minimum and maximum values may be extreme outliers and not representative of the typical range of calories that people encounter, the 25th to 75th centile range captures the middle 50% of the data, offering a more reliable view of the typical variation.

All meals displayed high levels of variation in terms of calorie content, except for the single beef burger and chips, coated chicken burger and chips, and chicken chow mein, which were more consistent.

This highlights that portion sizes are not standardised across vendors, even for the same dish.

This high variation in meal calories means that the healthiness of the meal you purchase could be heavily influenced by where you eat, not just what you eat.

There is high variation in calorie content of 'regular' or 'medium' takeaway meals for the same dish, even within the same city

How to read this chart: This chart shows the range of calories in takeaway meals, showing the highest and lowest values for each city.

There’s significant variation between the highest and lowest calorie counts for a given meal within the same city, which is particularly relevant to local consumers.

In Cardiff, a portion of sweet and sour chicken with egg-fried rice ranged from 1,305 to 2,246 calories. In Glasgow, sausage and chips ranged from 875 to 1,584 calories. In Birmingham, chicken tikka masala with pilau rice ranged from 895 to 1,868 calories.

To put this into further context, two restaurants just a 15-minute walk from each other in Birmingham are selling 'regular' or 'medium' portions of battered cod and chips that differ by 385 calories – approximately equivalent to the combined calories of a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar.

We found that this variation in total meal calories is not explained by how socioeconomically deprived the area is where a given restaurant is located (as determined by quintiles of the indices of multiple deprivation).

This high variation in a local context means that consumers might be purchasing products of significantly different calorie content depending on which local restaurant they choose.

57% of meals exceeded double the average recommended intake per meal (1200 calories)

How to read this chart: Meals sampled are positioned on the horizonal axis according to their calorie content. Each square represents a sampled meal and are coloured by whether they exceed 1,200 calories.

It therefore seems plausible that reducing the portion size of many of these much-loved meals could increase healthiness without diminishing the enjoyment we derive from eating. For example, reducing a meal containing 1,500 kcal to 1,350 kcal represents a significant reduction in absolute calories, while the meal remains enjoyable and filling.

Defining whether a meal is ‘excessive’ requires considering what individuals eat during the rest of the day, or even the week, as well as other factors such as physical activity and BMI. One large meal might be balanced by smaller ones, meaning the total number of calories consumed over time could still fall within healthy parameters. However, while it is difficult to assess whether a meal containing 750 calories is unhealthy without knowing the rest of someone's diet, it is likely that a meal as large as 1,200 calories is excessive, as this is approximately half the recommended daily intake.

Meal portion size varied more than energy density

When it comes to cutting down on excess calories from takeaway meals, both portion size and energy density (the concentration of calories in a meal) are important.

Energy density was relatively low compared to some discretionary items commonly sold by retailers. For example, we found that a typical portion of beef burger and chips has 259 calories per 100g, while a typical 45g packet of Walker’s Ready Salted Crisps contains 518 calories per 100g.

All of this suggests that focusing on portion size reduction may be a more viable approach to reducing calorie intake in this sector than reformulating dishes to lower energy density.

Furthermore, reformulation is a technical and at times expensive process, which would be difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to achieve, whereas portion size reduction is a much easier change for a business to implement.

The cost of Britain's best-loved takeaways varied from city to city

How to read this chart: The average price of meals sampled in each city is displayed in descending order from the most expensive to the least expensive.

London and Swansea had some of the highest prices, whereas Birmingham and Glasgow had some of the lowest.

The dishes with the greatest price difference between cities were battered cod with chips and sausage and chips.

The most consistent meal in terms of cost across cities was the margherita pizza (£7.89 - £9.50), with a variation of just £1.60 (16.9%).

Across all meals we found that more expensive meals had a higher number of calories, even after adjusting for differences in portion size (in grams).

We found that there's a clear trend showing that more expensive meals usually have more calories. A lot of this is because pricier meals tend to be larger. However, even when we take the size of the meals into account, there’s still a noticeable trend where more expensive meals generally have more calories.

This highlights that consumers might not only find healthier versions of the same meal at different outlets within the same area, but that these might be cheaper too.