Grocery Costs Then and Now
It’s no secret that grocery costs are one of the biggest things people worry about regarding their finances. Along with rent, housing, health insurance, and the price of gasoline, there’s no more significant expenditure on your wallet than the carton of eggs, the gallon of milk, and the loaf of bread we purchase every time we go to the supermarket.
As food costs inevitably continue to rise, it’s perhaps worth looking back and seeing how grocery price tags have evolved since 2019 (I.E., the last typical year we had that wasn’t affected by international wars, continuous financial policy changes, and a literal global pandemic that uprooted supply and demand).
The Cost of Eggs
More so than any other food, eggs have dramatically skyrocketed in price over the past half-decade, mainly owing to a 2022 avian flu outbreak that significantly altered eggs’ production. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost for a dozen large Grade A eggs has nearly doubled in price, rising from $1.20 in June 2019 to $3.37 in October 2024.
That number has risen and receded from one month to the next since 2019, but it’s remained consistently above average since the start of the 2020 COVID pandemic.
The Cost of Milk
Just as the cost of eggs has steadily risen, the price of milk has also escalated in recent years. In April 2019, families could purchase a gallon of fresh whole milk from their local grocer for $2.94. Nowadays, that same gallon of milk will cost you around $4.02 – a slight decrease from $4.20 in May 2022.
The Cost of Fresh Produce
Compared to dairy products, inflation has less affected fresh produce than most other items you’ll find lining grocery aisles. A pound of bananas, for example, which cost around $0.58 in May 2019, will set you back around $ 0.62 today.
Conversely, field-grown tomatoes have seen occasional spikes in pricing over the last few years, rising from $1.81 in June 2019 to $2.23 in December 2022, only to fall back to a far more affordable $2.00 in August 2024. Navel oranges have likewise experienced occasional jumps in pricing, ballooning up from $1.33 in December 2019 to $1.43 in January 2022 before rapidly rising to $1.81 in October 2024.
The Cost of Meat
Various meats have also risen in cost over the last five years. Ground beef and chuck, for example, has jumped from an agreeable $3.91 in April 2019 to a whopping $5.51 in September 2024. Fortunately, chicken hasn’t risen nearly as much as beef, with a pound costing around $1.49 in September 2019 versus $1.98 in September 2024.
The Cost of Bread
Bread has unfortunately found itself one of the most prominent victims of recent inflation, suffering from gradually rising price tags with each passing year. For instance, a pound of white bread that generally cost $1.28 in June 2019 has since climbed to $1.98 in September 2024 – a glacial price hike that’s been slowly building since the start of the pandemic.
Why Has Food Gotten So Expensive?
Just as everything has gotten more expensive over the last decade, food has grown increasingly more costly each year. While providing a simplified explanation behind these climbing culinary costs is impossible, specific glaring issues affect foods’ plateauing in-store price tags.
Above all else, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic significantly upended global supply chains, disrupting operational procedures regarding stores’ manufacturing processes. As a result of mandatory health precautions put in place to protect food workers, some foods’ production became severely limited, meaning certain products like meat became extremely hard to find in stores.
Most grocery suppliers are still rebounding from the problems of pandemic-era shortages, with certain items slowly returning to mainstream availability.
As mentioned, 2022 also witnessed a widespread avian flu epidemic that derailed egg-laying production for hens in the United States. With the sudden decline in egg production came the inevitable price hikes in available eggs, thereby explaining the sudden surge in the cost of fresh eggs at your nearest supermarket.
International conflict has also wreaked havoc on grocery stores’ access to specific food exports. For example, the war in Ukraine has massively limited suppliers’ ability to secure wheat and yeast for their products, negatively affecting the larger worldwide markets.
Will Food Prices Get Cheaper?
It may be a bit depressing to see how inflated grocery costs have become in the past five years. Still, this admittedly downbeat economic development has a slight silver lining. Though prices for everything from milk to bread have significantly risen since 2019, economists believe that the price hikes will climb more gradually than they have in the last few years.
This essentially has to do with an increasingly stabilized economy recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, with most suppliers strategizing ways to circumvent industry-wide disruptions like the pandemic, climate change, or the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
However, most knowledgeable economists and financial experts remain divided on how the recent 2024 presidential election could impact your grocery bill. In the past, President-elect Trump has vowed to improve the national economy, pledging to “make America affordable again” by lowering inflation in the U.S. Despite his campaign promises, some economists remain concerned about the effect Trump’s long-promised tariff plans might have on the already volatile food market.
As grocery chains contend with financial hardships stemming from Trump’s tariffs, experts have wondered whether those chains might push that additional cost onto the average consumer.
While there’s no telling what will happen regarding the national economy, it’s safe to say that grocery costs aren’t going down any time soon. Though this might cause all sorts of headaches when organizing your monthly budget, it’s also crucial to remember that the economy is forever evolving, sending shockwaves through the marketplace that affect gas, food, housing, and healthcare costs nationwide. J
ust as the economy eventually caught up with the ordinary consumer following the Great Recession, so will the market recover from the strain of recent financial disruptions, easing the monetary strain most Americans have been under since the start of the 2020s.
