Consumers are still feeling the pain in the supermarket checkout line. While the Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows food consumed at home – a category that covers groceries – rose only slightly in July, prices are still high after two years of inflation.
But a ConsumerAffairs analysis of grocery price data gathered by Datasembly, which monitors thousands of food prices in real-time, shows prices of at least five categories continued to rise at a rate faster than inflation over the last 12 months.
The biggest pain point is the price of eggs, which tend to be overly sensitive to supply and demand. When chicken flocks are culled because of an outbreak of avian flu, it drives up egg prices.
However, four other food categories continue to drive up the cost of a trip to the grocery store.
| Eggs | +31.9% |
| Baking | +7% |
| Beef | +5.3% |
| Pork | +3.6% |
| Cookies/crackers | +3.2% |
Some prices have fallen
But some other food categories have come down in price over the last 12 months. The cost of frozen food is 1.8% lower. Produce prices are also slightly lower while the price of cheese has remained flat over the last year.
According to Datasembly’s Grocery Price Index, overall grocery prices are up about 1% in the last year, in line with the CPI.