THE GROCERY PRICE INDEX
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BLS average price data

Grocery price history by year

Explore 516 annual price-history pages for 13 tracked grocery items, covering 1980 through 2026. Every page uses monthly U.S. city-average observations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Latest data: May 2026 · 2026 is year to date

How to use this archive

Choose a current-year card for monthly 2026 prices, or use a comparison-year group to open an item’s chart, monthly table, annual average, and inflation-adjusted value for that year. The 2026 averages are partial-year figures through May 2026; they will update only when the committed BLS observations advance.

Each grocery keeps its own reported unit, such as a gallon, dozen, or pound. Basket Report never averages prices across unlike units and never fills missing months by interpolation. A published item-year page exists only when its named BLS series contains at least one real observation for that year.

Coverage varies because BLS series begin in different years. The full archive list shows the actual range and decades available for every enabled item, while each item’s canonical price page provides its complete chronological set of year links.

Current year

2026 grocery prices by month

Year-to-date averages through May 2026.

Eggs $2.37 YTD average per dozen Latest: $2.19 in May Milk $4.11 YTD average per gallon Latest: $4.22 in May Ground beef $6.77 YTD average per pound Latest: $6.75 in May Coffee $9.53 YTD average per pound Latest: $9.51 in May Bacon $6.84 YTD average per pound Latest: $6.71 in May Butter $4.22 YTD average per pound Latest: $3.93 in May Bread $1.84 YTD average per pound Latest: $1.83 in May Fresh whole chicken $2.04 YTD average per pound Latest: $2.04 in May Sugar $1.01 YTD average per pound Latest: $1.03 in May Cheddar cheese $5.93 YTD average per pound Latest: $5.69 in May Bananas $0.65 YTD average per pound Latest: $0.65 in May Potatoes $0.87 YTD average per pound Latest: $0.89 in May Boneless chicken breast $4.16 YTD average per pound Latest: $4.17 in May

Reference points

Compare grocery prices in selected years

These are useful comparison years, not a claim that they are the most searched. Every link opens the named item’s real monthly observations for that year.

2019

2020

2022

2025

Complete coverage

Full item archives

Open an item to browse every available year. Counts and ranges below are generated from its committed non-null observations.

Source and methodology

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Average Price Data. Retrieved June 26, 2026 via the BLS Public Data API. Series identifiers and downloadable CSV/JSON files are listed on each item page and in the data directory.

BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.