You reach into the cupboard for a bottle of olive oil, a can of beans, or a bag of rice – things you’ve bought a hundred times without a second thought. Then you glance at the price tag. And you just stop. It’s one of those quiet, jarring moments that have been playing out at checkout counters across the country for the past few years, and honestly, it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of food at home climbed nearly 30 percent between March 2020 and December 2025. These higher food costs have pushed the average monthly household grocery budget to nearly $700, and the USDA’s Food Price Outlook projects continued increases heading into 2026. The items hitting the hardest aren’t always the steaks or the fancy cheeses. Sometimes, it’s the most “boring” pantry staples that are quietly draining your wallet. Let’s dive in.
1. Eggs: The Most Talked-About Shock at the Checkout
Few grocery stories have grabbed headlines quite like eggs. What used to be one of the most affordable proteins around has become a genuine budget item. The average price of Grade A large eggs soared by a staggering 368 percent, from just $1.33 per dozen in mid-2020 to a peak of $6.23 per dozen in March 2025, according to CPI data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
An avian influenza outbreak that began in 2022 has killed more than 145 million birds in the U.S., with producers reporting a significant rise in infections. The staggering losses led to supply shortages, with the monthly volume of frozen eggs in storage recently reaching the lowest level in nearly three years, according to the USDA.
Over the entire bird flu period from January 2022 to April 2025, the average retail price of a dozen Grade A large eggs rose by more than 165 percent. Prices have since come down from that brutal peak, but eggs are still far from cheap by historical standards. The USDA predicts egg prices will decrease in 2026, though the prediction range is wide, reflecting just how unpredictable this market remains.
2. Olive Oil: Once a Kitchen Staple, Now Basically Liquid Gold
Here’s the thing about olive oil. It used to be that everyday cooks could grab a bottle without so much as blinking. That era feels like ancient history now. The price of olive oil reached a record high of 10,281 USD per metric tonne in January 2024, according to market insight firm Y Charts. The price of olive oil nearly doubled between October 2023 and October 2024, according to the Federal Reserve.
Extreme hot weather and persistent drought conditions dealt a severe blow to olive oil production in southern Europe, where countries collectively account for roughly two thirds of global olive oil output. Spain, the world’s biggest producer, saw production essentially halved during one of the worst harvest periods on record.
The surge in olive oil prices has led many to call it “liquid gold,” with the increase attributed to a combination of climate challenges, rising production costs, and supply chain disruptions. Various factors contribute to persistently high olive oil prices at retail, including market structure, speculation, and resilient global demand. Even as wholesale prices showed some recovery in 2025, consumers at the shelf are still paying dramatically more than they were just a few years ago.
3. Coffee: Your Morning Ritual Just Got Pricier
If you’ve noticed your coffee budget quietly ballooning, you are absolutely not alone. The price of green coffee (unroasted coffee beans) surged dramatically, hitting a 47-year high in December 2024, and then climbed another 20 percent after that. Ground roast coffee prices in the U.S. hit $8.41 per pound in July 2025, a record high and a 33 percent increase from a year earlier, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Vietnam, the world’s second-largest coffee supplier, was hit by a drought that caused production to fall by roughly 20 percent in 2024, followed by heavy rainstorms that further crimped production. Packaged whole bean, ground, and instant coffee cost consumers nearly 21 percent more in August 2025 compared to a year earlier.
Morning routines have gotten noticeably pricier, with coffee inflation running in double digits. Bad weather in major growing regions reduced harvests and tightened global supply, and since the U.S. produces very little coffee domestically, imports fill the gap – with tariffs adding another layer of cost at the register. Extreme weather that negatively impacts coffee harvests is expected to become more common, and global coffee consumption continues to rise, keeping demand high.
4. Butter: A Dairy Classic Hitting All-Time Highs
Butter. Quiet, unassuming, always there. Except now it’s anything but cheap. In August 2025, Forbes reported the butter price index at an all-time high, citing tighter global milk supplies and rising input costs including labor and packaging as the key drivers of the surge.
Dairy products, including milk, cheese, and butter, are expected to become increasingly expensive, with higher feed and labor costs putting pressure on dairy farmers and leading to increased retail prices. The price of butter saw a roughly 18.5 percent year-on-year increase in the EU wholesale market between 2023 and 2024 alone.
Milk, cheese, and butter are all feeling pressure from the same forces hitting beef and eggs – high feed prices and elevated fuel costs making transportation more expensive – and farmers facing slimmer margins may reduce production, limiting supply while demand stays steady. Honestly, it’s hard to think of a more uneventful pantry item than butter. Yet here we are.
5. Canned Goods: The Budget Meal That’s No Longer a Bargain
Canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned soup – these were always the backup. The safety net of the pantry when nothing else seemed affordable. Canned beans, tomatoes, soups, and more were once considered inflation-safe, but packaging changes altered that – the costs of aluminum and steel are rising due to tariffs on imports from Asia, increasing manufacturing costs even as the food inside remains the same.
Prices for canned fruits and vegetables rose as a result of tariffs on steel and aluminum, which increased the cost of cans, and they are expected to remain high in 2026. Canned fruit prices specifically are up by nearly three percent, thanks to extreme weather impacting supply chains.
Common pantry staples like soup, tuna, and beans are driving up totals at the register, and Americans are likely to feel the increase given that stocking up on these basics has historically been a way to keep grocery spending down. The irony of the “budget aisle” no longer being a budget is not lost on anyone who’s been grocery shopping lately.
6. Ground Beef: The All-American Staple That’s Become a Splurge
Ground beef is the workhorse of the American kitchen. Tacos, burgers, pasta sauces, meatloaf. Nobody ever thought of it as a luxury item. Ground beef averaged $6.23 per pound in September 2025, and production is expected to stay low through 2026, with the U.S. cattle herd at the smallest level in decades, keeping supply tight regardless of how strong demand becomes.
Ground beef prices rose by more than 52 percent since March 2020, ranking among the top items with the largest price gains since the pandemic began, according to CPI data. Thanks to persistent droughts and shrinking herd sizes, beef and other red meat prices have been on the rise, with high input costs and changes in trade conditions pushing prices upward and tightening supplies as consumer demand remains strong.
Beef prices are already up double digits from a year ago because the U.S. cattle herd is at a historic low. Rebuilding that herd takes years, not months. So if you’re hoping for a quick price correction at the meat counter, it’s hard to say for sure, but most experts aren’t holding their breath.
7. Sugar: Quietly Surging for Years
Sugar doesn’t get the dramatic headlines that eggs or coffee do. It just sits there in its white bag, looking perfectly innocent. Sugar and sugar alternatives are up roughly 3.5 percent year-over-year, having surged around 23 percent over the past three years. That kind of slow creep adds up faster than most people realize.
Coffee and sugar markets both felt the effects of weather disruptions in major producing countries, which led to higher import and processing costs. Global commodity prices for sugar, coffee, and cocoa have remained volatile and continue to affect specific product categories across the board.
The rising price of sugar has also continued to drive up the price of candy and most confectionaries. Think about that the next time you bake something. Every ingredient in your pantry that requires sugar is affected upstream. Bakers, food manufacturers, and home cooks alike are all quietly absorbing these costs.
8. Cocoa and Chocolate Products: A Sweet That’s Turned Sour for Wallets
Chocolate in baking staples – cocoa powder, baking chips, chocolate bars – might seem like an indulgence rather than a pantry basic. Let’s be real, though: for millions of home bakers, cocoa powder is as essential as flour. Between January and April 2024, the price of cocoa almost tripled, skyrocketing from around $4,444 per tonne to over $12,538, exacerbated by unfavorable weather in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire that led to an 11 percent decline in global supply.
Cocoa prices surged by 30 percent in a single month, averaging more than $10 per kilogram, after what was anticipated to be a doubling in prices across 2024. Chocolate candy could continue to jump in price, as it is being affected by both weather-related supply chain issues and tariffs.
Global cocoa output declined sharply in 2024 to 2025 due to unfavorable weather, with recovery now projected but dependent on conditions holding stable in West Africa. If you’ve noticed your favorite baking chocolate shrinking in size while staying the same price, that’s called shrinkflation – and it’s just as sneaky as a straightforward price hike.
9. Vegetable Oils: A Cooking Essential Under Pressure
Sunflower oil, canola oil, palm oil – the everyday cooking oils that most people barely think about when they toss them in the cart. Even humble margarine is up nearly four percent, while vegetable oils such as palm, soybean, and sunflower are necessary to make margarine, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has severely impacted the food supply chain.
Fats and oils were among the categories that experienced large price increases in late 2025, according to USDA Food Price Outlook data. Even the prices of basics like bread and cereal grains have become unpredictable in recent years, thanks to volatile input costs such as fuel and fertilizer.
The war in Ukraine isn’t abstract economics to a grocery shopper – it shows up directly in the cooking oil aisle, quietly inflating the price of one of the most-used items in any kitchen. When sunflower oil becomes scarce, manufacturers switch to alternatives, bidding up those prices in turn. It’s a domino effect that most people never see coming.
10. Canned Tuna and Seafood: The Protein Staple Feeling the Squeeze
Canned tuna is a classic. It’s been a lunch staple and budget protein for generations. What used to be a reliable backup meal is getting noticeably less cheap, because cheap shelf-stable goods have relied on imports from countries like Vietnam, China, and South Korea, and trade costs affecting those countries are pushing prices up, while freight expenses also remain elevated compared to pre-2020 levels.
According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of food at home climbed 29.4 percent between March 2020 and December 2025. Seafood products, including canned varieties, sit squarely within that broader inflation picture. Supply chain costs, packaging costs, and import tariffs all play a role.
The costs of aluminum and steel are rising due to tariffs on imports from Asia, and manufacturing costs have increased even as the food inside cans remains the same. For something as unassuming as a tin of tuna, that’s a surprisingly complex web of economic forces driving your grocery bill higher every quarter.
11. Flour and Baking Basics: Bread Baking Isn’t as Cheap as It Used to Be
People turned to home baking in huge numbers during the pandemic, discovering that making your own bread and pastries was satisfying and cheaper. That equation has changed. The prices of basics like bread and cereal grains have become increasingly unpredictable in recent years, thanks to volatile input costs such as fuel and fertilizer.
Food prices continued rising faster than the overall Consumer Price Index in 2025, according to data from the USDA’s Economic Research Service. Wheat and flour prices were caught up in the same global supply chain disruptions that hit nearly every agricultural commodity after 2020, driven by energy costs, fertilizer prices, and weather events.
The long-term increase in food prices reflects the sustained inflationary shock that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued through global supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and increased input costs. Even if you bake your own bread to save money, the flour, yeast, and oil all cost more than they did five years ago. The math has simply gotten harder.
12. Dairy Milk and Cheese: Everyday Dairy That’s No Longer a Bargain
Milk and cheese sit in virtually every family’s refrigerator. They’re not glamorous. Nobody puts cheese on a list of luxury items. Yet here we are. Dairy farmers are grappling with rising expenses including feed, energy, and labor costs, while shifts in global demand and supply chain issues are affecting pricing trends – and these higher production costs will be passed down to consumers in the form of more expensive dairy products.
Dairy products such as milk and cheese have seen recent price increases, since bird flu has affected not only chicken flocks but also herds of dairy cattle. The cost of milk increased by more than three percent between May 2024 and May 2025. Small percentages sound harmless until you add it all up across an entire year of grocery shopping for a family.
Like beef and eggs, the U.S. dairy supply, including milk, cheese, and butter, may continue to suffer from rising grain prices in 2026. Farmers are facing higher fuel and feed costs, which means dairy is getting more expensive, and if farmers can’t be profitable, fewer will produce dairy products – creating a supply shortage while demand remains high. It’s the same story playing out across aisle after aisle in the modern supermarket.
