Price drops beat increases, 4-to-2, on my June grocery list, but the two that were up washed out any savings, including a hairball-coughing hike in dry cat food. Overall, the prices of this sampling of items I regularly buy are still up since we started tracking.
Let’s take a look at my Grocery Snapshot for June.
What was up?
The price of oranges continued to rise. After a $1.80 hike in May, a two-pound bag of mandarins was up another 50 cents in June. As I wrote last month, some of this spring’s price hike for oranges is seasonal – growing and selling season has ended. Some is also because Florida’s production of oranges was down 35% from last year because of damage from Hurricane Milton in October and citrus greening disease (huanglongbing), a bacterial infection that’s caused a 92% drop in Florida orange production over the past two decades. California outpaces Florida in orange production, but when Florida production is down, California’s oranges are in more demand, causing prices to go up.
The biggest surprise was a 91-cent hike for a 3.15-pound bag of Meow Mix Indoor Health dry food. It’s not clear why the increase, though Meow Mix, based in Ohio, does use some internationally sourced ingredients for its food.
What was down?
Last month I said Barilla pasta is imported from Italy. It’s not, but some of its ingredients are. That pesky pound of angel hair has had a roller-coaster price ride since I started keeping track. This month it was down 40 cents from May, after rising 9 cents between April and May.
Also down was Cascade Premium Plus dishwasher detergent packs, which had a 50 cent drop.
A half-gallon of milk was down 6 cents after rising 17 between February and May.
And toilet paper was down 10 cents a roll.
What we’re watching
Plain, fat-free store brand Greek yogurt was not on the shelf. The entire shelf was bare, the first time I’ve ever seen that. It does show it as available on the store’s website, so it’s possible it was a stocking issue, but it’s rare to see an entire shelf bare when the other types of store brand yogurt (like low-fat, flavored, etc.) were there. Greek producers did express concern about tariffs and the impact they’d have on products sold in the U.S., but there’s no requirement that yogurt labeled “Greek” sold in the U.S. is made there, it’s more a reference to the style of yogurt. Anyway, that’s a long musing about an empty shelf. I’ll keep an eye on it and let you know next month if it was just a bad moment to be in the store looking for that product.
Those 50% steel and aluminum tariffs went into effect Wednesday, and among other things, are likely to cause some grocery item price increases because of extensive use in packaging. We’ll see what happens.
A 21% tariff on tomatoes from Mexico goes into effect next month, so we’ll see how that affects what we see in the store. It coincides with the start of the U.S. tomato harvest season, which means more local tomatoes available, but that may mean more demand, which can cause a price hike.
The Disclaimer
We’re keeping an eye on how some grocery items on my regular list change month-to-month, and if the tariffs imposed (or announced, then pulled back, then tweaked, then imposed again) have any effect..
This is just a snapshot, not a scientific analysis. A lot goes into price changes, including seasons, weather, store preference, store decisions, and many other things besides tariffs. I’ve included things likely to be affected by tariffs as well as some things that may not be.
It’s also not a measure of all prices in a category, just the specific items I buy. For instance, if the price for the brand and type of cat food I buy increases, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all cat food everywhere increased. The brands reflected aren’t an endorsement. This is not a comparison shopping exercise, or a search for the cheapest version of an item. This is not an advertisement for Hannaford, it’s just where I happen to shop.
I like a good cup of coffee (and apparently an expensive one), so we’re keeping an extra eye on that just for fun.
