Since 2022, U.K.-linked families with businesses focused on energy and food production have grown wealthier faster than the wider super-rich in a period when struggling families paid more for power, fuel, and groceries, according to a new analysis cited by the Guardian.
Here's what to know
From 2022 to 2026, energy-based fortunes on the Sunday Times Rich List rose 20%, and food-production fortunes rose 15%, according to research commissioned by War on Want.
For those whose wealth came through energy, that pace was four times the Rich List average.
Among the biggest gainers was the Perrodo family, whose wealth increased by £3 billion ($4 billion) over the four-year period, per the newspaper.
François Perrodo runs Perenco, one of Europe's biggest privately owned oil and gas businesses, and also raced at Le Mans in June before winning at Spa-Francorchamps at the end of August.
The Warburton family added £185 million ($244.8 million) as bread costs rose, while Iceland founder Malcolm Walker's fortune increased by £106 million ($140.3 million), the Guardian noted.
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Ranjit Singh Boparan and his wife, whose businesses supply about a third of the United Kingdom's poultry products, tripled their wealth since 2022 to over £2 billion ($2.6 billion).
Consumers absorbed the cost of those gains during a stretch of steep price increases.
By August, gas (often called "natural gas" in the U.S. to sound less polluting) was still 31% costlier than in January 2020, electricity 17% higher, and petrol (gasoline in the U.S.) twice as expensive, per the Guardian. Food prices were up 38.6% from November 2020 to November 2025.
More background
Ben Tippet, an academic at Kings College London who researches wealth inequality, conducted the analysis.
Using his earlier work categorizing the sources of wealth on the Rich List, he identified a subset of 15 families — focused on those making the most from energy or food businesses — and found that their wealth gains coincided with higher company profit margins.
Perenco's rise has also drawn scrutiny.
The company challenged the Peruvian government over an Indigenous people's reserve, received a £6 million ($7.9 million) penalty after a 2023 Dorset spill, and was named in 2024 documents about unplugged North Sea wells, the paper highlighted.
Perenco asserted that it takes its human rights and environmental law obligations "very seriously" and was "fully compliant with all relevant deadlines" for its North Sea wells.
Fossil fuel dependence harms communities because coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants contribute to air and water pollution linked to asthma, heart disease, cancer, and premature death.
Households that rely on those fuels also face higher energy costs than if they use systems powered by more abundant resources such as sunlight and wind, while industry lobbying slows the transition to cleaner, cheaper energy that would better protect families.
Agriculture is the biggest source of river pollution in the U.K., with chicken farms specifically blamed for serious contamination in the Wye and Severn, the Guardian noted.
That has brought attention to Boparan's poultry empire as his family's fortune has surged.
What's being done?
War on Want is using the findings to push for policy changes as Labour members gather in Liverpool for the party's annual conference.
The charity urges the government to set £10 million ($13.2 million) as the maximum acceptable personal wealth and levy an annual tax on assets above that level, per the Guardian.
The group is also pushing ministers to work with other countries on taxing extreme wealth through the emerging U.N. Tax Convention.
It argues that tackling the cost of living crisis will be difficult without also confronting the concentration of wealth in sectors tied to rising household bills and worsening climate impacts.
Perenco dropped that claim after Peru's culture ministry concluded that uncontacted Indigenous people were in the area and said it later changed its processes after the Dorset spill.
Boparan has pledged improved animal welfare standards and lower emissions at 2 Sisters Food Group farms, according to the Guardian.
The British Poultry Council, meanwhile, defended the sector's record, with chief executive Richard Griffiths saying manure is managed "with designated routes of use" under government-regulated environmental permitting schemes.
Where can I learn more?
Concentrated wealth and corporate power also show up in climate and energy costs in other ways.
• The ultra-rich cause nearly $1 trillion in climate damage through outsize emissions and investments.
• In Texas, bitcoin miners exploit the power system while household utility costs rise.
• Across the U.S., major tech firms drive surging power demand that could raise household bills.
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