How Expensive is Your Grocery Cart?
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
How expensive is your grocery cart? Well, it varies widely based on where you are grabbing those essentials. Retail food price inflation varied by locality in 2023, according to USDA’s Economic Research Service. New data shows food-at-home, or grocery prices, rose the fastest last year in Houston, Texas, by 7.8 percent, followed by Boston, Massachusetts, at seven percent.
In contrast, food-at-home prices declined by 1.3 percent in 2023 in Anchorage, Alaska, and rose by the lowest amount—1.7 percent—in Honolulu, Hawaii. Across the United States, food-at-home prices increased by 5.0 percent on average in 2023.
Differences in retail overhead expenses, such as labor and rent, can explain some of the variation among cities, because retailers often pass local cost increases to consumers in the form of higher prices.
Where do we sit here in the California? Looking at the metro areas, here are the percentages: San Francisco up 4.4%, Los Angeles up 3.8% and San Diego up 4%.
