Grocery claims a 15.6% share of overall U.S. retail spending. It’s a high-frequency, fairly inelastic, essential category, so any pricing changes influence discretionary spending. Because we track grocery inflation so closely, we’re able to identify trends, analyze the impact, and share more accurate insights with our clients faster than other retail planning providers.

We’ve built a basket of the most consumed grocery products in the U.S., collecting from such categories as fruits and vegetables, cereals and baked goods, dairy, meat, seafood and poultry, frozen foods, deli, and beverages. We select these items based on consumer availability, accessibility, and popularity.

The different categories are weighted based on their “average” U.S. consumption. For example, if consumers spend 20 percent of their grocery budget on dairy, then 20 percent of the basket contains dairy products. We have further classified these products into macro-nutrient food groups (protein, carbohydrate, and fat contributors), staple food and discretionary food, healthy food and unhealthy food, and plant-based and nonplant-based to help uncover any underlying price trends across each of these groups.

We then compare their prices weekly to discern price inflation and its effects.

Inflation in the overall food-at-home segment (including grocery store and supermarket food purchases) rose 0.9 percent over the last 12 months. The steepest increase was in meats, poultry, fish, and eggs (3.2 percent). Offsetting that over the same period, fruits and vegetables prices declined slightly (0.2 percent) and similarly cereals and bakery products declined (0.3 percent), Dairy and related products increased slightly (0.4). Other significant food categories displayed varying increases— Non Alcoholic beverages and beverage materials increased by 1.3 percent whereas, Other food at home increased by 0.4 percent. Meats, poultry, fish, and eggs are the only category with the steepest increase among the food-at-home segment. Also, “food away from home” significantly saw an increase of 4.0 percent.

From August to September, prices rose only slightly: 1.40 percent. The steepest price increase (3.80 percent) was observed in the Non Alcoholic Beverages and beverage materials category & (2.98 percent) in Fruits & Vegetables materials. Meats, poultry, fish & Eggs prices went up (1.51 percent) and the prices of Cereals & Bakery Products rose by (0.41 percent), along with “Other food at home” increasing by (1.71 percent). The steepest decline in the prices was observed in Dairy & Related products (2.04 percent).

Month-over-month (MoM) prices for discretionary food products decreased by 0.07 percent while staple products increased by 0.17 percent. Prices for fat-rich and carbohydrates-rich products decreased by 0.17 percent and 0.07 percent, respectively whereas, protein-rich products increased by 0.84 perccent. Price increases for healthy products (0.41 percent MoM) slightly outpaced that of non-healthy products (0.21 percent). Prices for plant-based products decreased by 0.20 percent while non-plant-based product prices also rose by 0.31 percent.