Super-rich UK energy and food magnates’ wealth skyrockets amid global crises

François Perrodo is what is known in motorsport as a gentleman driver. In June, he raced at Le Mans, earning a podium place. At the end of August he was back behind the wheel at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. This time he won.

Gentleman drivers are wealthy individuals who fund their own participation. The FIA governing body caps costs to keep racing accessible to such enthusiasts. But for self-confessed petrolhead Perrodo, it is well within his means.

Perrodo is in charge of his family’s company, Perenco, one of Europe’s largest privately held oil and gas companies. Between this summer’s two big races, he was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo presenting a multibillion dollar oil investment plan to the president. In the past four years, his family’s wealth has increased by about £3bn. He is one of a number of UK-linked billionaires whose wealth has soared since 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine kicked off a global cost of living crisis.

An analysis has found that families whose fortunes came from energy grew their wealth four times faster than their super-rich peers since 2022. Families whose fortunes came from food production increased their wealth three times faster.

The Perrodo clan take the first place in a list of 15 super-rich UK-linked families who have seen their wealth soar from doing business in energy or food production. In all cases, the analysis found, increases in wealth came alongside increases in profit margins at businesses they owned.

The rises in energy and food prices, caused by climate shocks, wars and geopolitical tensions, have driven a multiyear cost of living crisis. Energy prices have fallen back from their peaks, but in August 2026 gas prices were 31% higher than in January 2020, while electricity prices were 17% higher. Petrol is more volatile, but is currently about twice as expensive as 2020. UK food prices rose by a total of 38.6% between November 2020 and November 2025.

The research, commissioned by the antipoverty charity War on Want, found that households on the Sunday Times Rich List whose fortunes came primarily from energy saw their wealth increase by 20% between 2022 and 2026 – four times the list average. Households whose fortunes came primarily from food production enjoyed a wealth increase of 15%.

Ben Tippet, an academic who researches wealth inequality at Kings College London, did the analysis based on his previous research categorising the sources of the wealth of households in the Rich List. He compiled a sub-list of 15 families who had made the most money from doing business in energy or food.

The list includes household names such as the Warburton family, who have increased their wealth by £185m as the cost of bread has risen, and Iceland supermarket founder Malcolm Walker, whose fortune grew by £106m.

Top of the list for food is Ranjit Singh Boparan, for whom the past decade has seen a stunning turnaround in his fortunes. In 2018, the “chicken king” was forced to step down as chief executive of his family company, 2 Sisters Food Group (2SFG), after a food safety scandal. The analysis found that he and his wife, whose companies are said to produce a third of all poultry products eaten in the UK, had tripled their wealth since 2022, taking it to over £2bn.

Perenco, which specialises in eking out the last drops from ageing oil wells, has been embroiled in a number of scandals. Four years ago, it sued the Peruvian government to try to block an Indigenous people’s reserve. Three years ago, there was an oil spill in Dorset – an accident that earned it a £6m fine. And two years ago documents revealed it was failing to plug its old North Sea wells.

Perenco said it was a “recognised expert in the optimisation of mature fields” and that it takes human rights and environmental law obligations “very seriously”. It noted that it had withdrawn its claim against the Peruvian government after the country’s ministry of culture determined there were uncontacted Indigenous people in the area.

Regarding the Dorset oil spill, Perenco said “very specific conditions in this pipeline” led to a spill of 200 barrels of reservoir fluid, which was about one-eighth crude oil and seven-eighths production fluid, including biocides. “Perenco UK have made changes to their processes and conducted extensive checks to confirm that these conditions are not present elsewhere,” the company said. And it added that it is “fully compliant with all relevant deadlines” for its North Sea wells “and strongly refutes any suggestion that it is not fulfilling its decommissioning obligations, or is in any way putting the integrity of assets at risk”.

Boparan has committed to higher welfare and cuts to emissions at 2SFG’s farms. But chicken factory farming nonetheless places a heavy load on the environment: farming is the UK’s largest cause of river pollution, and chicken farms in particular have been accused of causing severe pollution in the rivers Wye and Severn.

Boparan and 2SFG declined to comment. But the British Poultry Council insisted “chicken farms are not harming rivers”.

“All manure is managed and accounted for with designated routes of use, and all under government-regulated environmental permitting schemes,” said Richard Griffiths, the council’s chief executive. “Chicken consumption is growing and we have a responsibility to produce it sustainably ... Chicken is not the only way forward, but it is the one that can deliver today, tomorrow, and the next day.”

The research comes as Labour members and politicians meet in Liverpool for the party’s annual conference with the cost of living crisis a priority for Andy Burnham’s government. War on Want says that can only work if the government also takes steps to limit extreme wealth. It is calling for the government to establish £10m as the upper acceptable limit for wealth; to introduce an annual wealth tax on all assets over £10m; and to work with foreign governments to support extreme wealth taxation globally, including through the emerging UN Tax Convention.

“The super-rich are profiting from the food and energy industries that fuel both the climate and cost-of-living crises,” said Nuri Syed Corser, a campaigner at War on Want.

“Working-class people face soaring prices and worsening climate impacts – and the billionaires who own food and energy companies are profiting from this hardship. We need to tax the super-rich and use their extreme wealth to tackle the climate and cost-of-living crises.”