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Sale pricing on endcaps at a HyVee in Wisconsin. Errol Schweizer Food prices have jumped 25% since 2021, while food consumption volumes are down over 5%. Inflation may be in the low single digits, but people are now buying a lot less food, with over 47 million Americans skipping meals or lining up at food banks. Grocery price inflation has driven an affordability crisis fueling food insecurity and economic anxiety. In 2025, grocers sold 13 billion fewer units of product than in 2021. Grocery industry sales have jumped almost $225 billion since the pandemic ended. But that growth is all price inflation. Grocery prices outpaced the rate of inflation by several points from 2021-2023, with the gap growing as the CPI (consumer price index) cooled off. Based on NIQ data exclusively shared with Forbes, the top 10 most consumed categories, including beef, soft drinks, eggs, milk, salty snacks and coffee, experienced an average price increase of 60% since 2019, with a 1.3% decline in unit volume. In 2019, a basket of the top 10 items cost $36. In 2025, $56. This far outpaces the nominal wage growth of 22% in the same period. The increase in prices since 2019 is equal to or greater than the cost of doing business for most grocery stores. Grocery store gross margins, more or less the markups they take on their wholesale costs, enable them to keep the lights on and pay for employees, rent, utilities, and taxes. Gross margins range from @22% for Kroger or Walmart and up to 35-40% for Sprouts, Whole Foods or your neighborhood co-op or supermarket. In order to bring retail prices down to 2019 levels, grocers would have to sell nearly everything at or below their wholesale costs. Grocery unit volumes are down 5% relative to 2021 while…

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Filed under: News - @ November 14, 2025 12:29 pm