Since the pandemic, food prices have been derailed.
COVID lockdowns forced people to eat at home more often, and in April 2020, food prices saw their biggest rise in decades, increasing 2.6% from the previous month.
Then, in 2022, food prices began another rise, as Americans with cash on hand returned to stores in large numbers and retailers struggled to meet pent-up demand. The food system faced other shocks that year, including a serious outbreak of bird flu and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Food prices increased by 11.4% in 2022 alone.
This period of dramatic food inflation has slowed in 2023, although prices have generally not returned to previous levels. Instead, food prices continued to rise, but at a slower pace, roughly in line with overall inflation.
“But the damage was done,” said Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. “Any inflation that is happening in grocery stores now is on top of these already very high prices, and consumers are very sensitive to that.”
President Trump has pledged to lower food prices during his second term. And while some products have become cheaper since Trump returned to office, overall food prices have increased on average. This is due to a number of systemic factors, from rising labor costs to tariffs to rising energy prices caused by the war with Iran.
However, if you zoom in on a single food, the story is often more complicated. Specific issues facing a crop, animal species or geographic region can influence the retail price halfway around the world. Sometimes the price of an item varies far beyond what inflation itself can explain, or the price falls while most other items tend to rise.
We’ve selected five everyday food items—ground beef, eggs, coffee, butter, and chocolate chip cookies—to explain the complex math behind what you pay at the grocery checkout.
Ground beef
The cost of ground beef has been rising for years, largely due to weather conditions and financial pressures on producers. A typical pound of ground beef last month cost $6.79, an 85 percent increase from a decade earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Recent droughts have devastated America’s cattle herds, which can take years to recover. Added to that are rising costs of farm equipment and fuel, a lack of land for grazing and a consolidated meatpacking industry that farmers and ranchers say is eating into their profits. The number of cattle ranches in the United States has declined, according to the latest Census of Agriculture. “I think there is still a sector of young people who are interested in agriculture, but the barriers to entry into agriculture are enormous,” said Reid Hall, a Kentucky cattle rancher. All of this led to the creation of the smallest cattle herd in the United States in 75 years.
The Trump administration has attempted a number of measures to lower ground beef prices over the past two years, including allowing more imports of ground beef without tariffs. But U.S. ranchers have widely criticized the measures, arguing that increasing the amount of imported ground beef would only make it more difficult — and more expensive — to operate U.S. farms and ranches.
Eggs
In recent years, soaring egg prices have been largely curtailed by avian flu, which affects wild birds and poultry. Large outbreaks force farms to cull their flocks to prevent the spread of the disease, decreasing the national supply of chickens and driving up prices. This happened in 2022, and again in 2024, when the price of eggs skyrocketed, followed by a sharp decline. The damage caused by avian flu in a given season depends on the severity of the outbreak and the success of biosecurity measures taken by U.S. farms in response to the disease.
Outbreaks can have a boost effect on egg prices. An average dozen hit a record high of $6.23 in March last year, when supplies were depleted by a brutal bird flu season. Yet as of last month, the typical price in the United States had fallen to $2.27 per dozen.
Although bird flu is the leading cause of egg prices, it’s not the only thing that can disrupt U.S. poultry operations. Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on foreign products have also increased the cost of packaging materials, such as cardboard, used in egg cartons.
Coffee
The United States imports more than 99% of the coffee it consumes. That’s why the Trump administration’s tariffs on countries like Brazil, which supplies 35 percent of the world’s coffee supply, were particularly bitter for American coffee drinkers. Last fall, the Trump administration removed tariffs on some foreign products in an effort to lower prices, and coffee was on the list.
But the price of coffee last month was still 44% higher than it was two years earlier. Bad weather and climate change disrupt harvests. Drought and heavy rains in coffee-producing countries like Brazil, Vietnam and Costa Rica have reduced coffee bean yields. And excessive humidity in coffee plantations can cause mold and disease growth.
Butter
Butter currently costs much less than before. A pound of butter cost an average of $3.96 in September. This figure is down 17.3% since last year, bucking the trend of rising food prices.
Interest in butter has become widespread recently, fueling strong demand for the dairy product. New dietary guidelines announced this year by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who led the Make America Healthy Again movement, encourage people to eat fats like butter.
Yet even though the demand for butter is high, the supply is even greater. Butter production in the United States is booming, in part because dairy farms have expanded their herds and increased milk production to produce more dairy protein for popular foods like Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. This also led to an oversupply of butter.
Chocolate chip cookies
The price of chocolate chip cookies began rising sharply during the pandemic, reaching a record $5.35 per pound in January. (Last month, regular treats were 20 cents cheaper.)
Part of the price spike can be explained by looking at the ingredients that go into chocolate chip cookies. The war in Ukraine has driven up the price of flour. Cocoa prices have reached several historic highs in recent years. And bird flu largely determines the value of eggs in a given month. Some of those prices have fallen recently, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last year that baked goods remained expensive, in part because of strong consumer demand for “more expensive luxury treats.”
Keegan Rodgers, founder and pastry chef at Lakehouse Bakery in Chelsea, Michigan, resisted buying cheaper ingredients — like margarine instead of butter — just to save money. “If I switched to garden ingredients, my costs would go down about 30 percent,” he said.
But Rodgers, who pointed out that he also paid more for labor and insurance, said he reluctantly raised his prices so he could afford high-quality ingredients and employ skilled bakers. “Real food is more important than the bottom line,” he said.
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