Groceries · Updated monthly · Figures to July 2026

Why are Groceries getting so expensive?

Your food bill isn't imagining it, but it isn't one story either: groceries overall are +2.6% on a year ago - an average that hides a spread from coffee at +10.7% to eggs at −39.2%. Here's every staple, ranked by how much dearer it got - and the why behind the big movers.

By Richard Baxter Further reading Updated 1 Jul 2026

Biggest riser +10.7% Coffee · vs a year ago

Groceries overall +2.6% food-at-home prices, year on year

Rising faster than average 3 of 8 staples in this basket

"Everything's more expensive" feels true at the till, but the till doesn't itemise the blame. The government does: every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics prices the same everyday items in shops across the country. Here they are, ranked by how much dearer each one got in a year - so you can see which staples are driving your bill, and which are just along for the ride.

Everyday staples ranked by price change over one year (per cent change, year on year, US average retail price, as of 1 Jul 2026)
Rank	Staple	%
1	Coffee (ground, per lb)	10.7
2	Ground beef (chuck, per lb)	10.1
3	Milk (whole, per gallon)	3.6
4	Bananas (per lb)	-1.1
5	Bread (white, per lb)	-1.7
6	Sugar (per lb)	-2.1
7	Chicken (whole, per lb)	-3.5
8	Eggs (dozen, large)	-39.2

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics average prices, via FRED figures to 1 Jul 2026

So, what are we looking at, exactly?

The change in the average US retail price of each staple over twelve months - the same item, the same measure, a year apart, which quietly removes the seasonal wobbles. Above zero, dearer than last year. The spread is the story: one number for "groceries" hides the fact that coffee and eggs are having completely different years.

Why is coffee so expensive?

The star of the table, and the one with the clearest paper trail. Coffee is farmed in a narrow climate band, and the world's biggest grower - Brazil - has taken repeated drought and frost hits to its harvests, with Vietnam's robusta crop squeezed in the same years; the International Coffee Organization's market reports document the shortfalls behind each price surge. A pound of ground coffee now averages $9.32, against $8.41 a year ago - and the whole history is below, sliding back to the era when it was a fraction of that.

Source: FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis figures to 1 Jul 2026

From 1980 2026

What a pound of ground coffee costs now

$9.32

against $8.41 a year ago · +10.7% · calculated from the chart

And what happened to eggs?

Eggs are the basket's drama queen: a dozen averages $2.19 (−39.2% on a year ago), but the recent history is a saw-tooth - repeated outbreaks of avian flu have forced the culling of tens of millions of laying hens, and prices spike with each wave before flocks rebuild. The USDA's avian influenza reporting tracks the outbreaks behind the spikes.

↑ +10.7% coffee, in one year

↑ A few staples are doing most of the damage

3 of the 8 staples here rose faster than groceries overall (+2.6%). The rest moved less than the headline - your bill's pain is concentrated, not general.

Calculated from the table above

What this table can't tell you

These are national average prices - your shop, your brands and your town all sit somewhere around them, not on them. A year-on-year change also says nothing about the level: bananas have been famously cheap for decades, so even a sharp rise leaves them costing pennies. And "why" varies per item - weather, disease, fuel and wages all reach the shelf by different roads, which is why the big movers above each carry their own named source rather than one tidy villain.