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US Grocery Prices · 2026

Average grocery prices in the USA.

National averages for the most-bought grocery items, sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. These are the same numbers the Consumer Price Index uses — useful as a baseline, but almost certainly different from what you actually pay at your stores.

Item Avg US price Unit
Milk, fortified whole $4.05per gallon
Eggs, Grade A large $3.40per dozen
Bread, white pan $1.95per pound
Ground beef, 100% beef $5.80per pound
Chicken breast, boneless $4.20per pound
Bananas $0.65per pound
Potatoes, white $1.05per pound
Tomatoes, field-grown $1.95per pound
Onions $1.40per pound
Rice, white long-grain $1.00per pound

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Average Retail Food Prices (U.S. city average, food at home). Figures are approximate to the nearest 5¢ and reflect the most recent monthly release we've pulled.

Why your grocery bill doesn't match these numbers

A national average is a single number stretched across 50 states, every store format, and every brand. Your bill is one shopper, in a few stores, buying specific brands. Three things drive the gap:

That's why the headline "grocery inflation rate" on the news rarely matches what you feel at checkout — your basket isn't the average basket.

See your real prices →

PricePrint logs what you actually pay, at your stores, and shows your real basket vs. the national number. Free, no account, runs in your browser.

How we sourced this

All figures come from the BLS Average Retail Food Prices dataset — the same survey that feeds the Consumer Price Index. We refresh this page quarterly when BLS publishes new monthly figures. Prices are U.S. city averages, not a specific store or city. For state-level breakdowns or historical series, BLS publishes the full data here.

FAQ
Where do these average grocery prices come from?
From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Average Retail Food Prices series (food at home, U.S. city average). It's the same dataset the Consumer Price Index draws on for grocery items.
How often is this page updated?
Approximately every quarter. The BLS releases new monthly figures roughly two to four weeks after each month closes; we re-pull and update the table on a quarterly cadence.
Why are the prices at my store different from these averages?
Three big reasons: region (the same item costs noticeably more in coastal metros than in the Midwest), store (Costco vs Whole Foods vs Aldi vary by 30–60% on common items), and brand or package size (name-brand and small packs run higher per unit). The national average is a useful baseline, not what you actually pay.
Are US grocery prices going up in 2026?
Food-at-home inflation has cooled from the 2022 peak but is still positive year over year. The headline figure understates what most households experience because it averages a fixed basket across the whole country, while your real basket is concentrated in the categories that rose fastest.