As ongoing inflation continues to deplete household budgets, perhaps nowhere is the pinch felt more strongly than in grocery aisles. However, depending on where you live, the pain can be sharper than in other areas.
That’s according to a new study from SmartAsset which reveals notable fluctuations in grocery price increases from city to city. The financial technology company used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to examine how the costs of everyday items like eggs, meat and produce have changed in 12 major metro areas over the last year.
“While prices of fruits, vegetables and dairy products either increased or decreased depending on the location, eggs, meat and poultry soared almost unanimously, reaching over 9% or higher than just a year before — tripling the general rate of inflation,” the study found.
Jaclyn DeJohn, director of economic analysis and author of the SmartAsset study, said the big takeaway is how much location can impact these day-to-day items.
“We really wanted to do was compare where people’s budget is going to get hit the hardest,” said DeJohn, who noted that the study in not a comprehensive ranking but a snapshot of location-related shifts in the cost of groceries. “People are noticing these costs, and they’re impacting their bottom line.”
Read on to see how grocery prices fluctuated in 12 major U.S. metros.
Which cities are seeing price increases?
Out of the 12 cities included in SmartAsset’s analysis, Honolulu, Hawaii, experienced the largest uptick with a 5.3% increase in overall grocery prices since last year. Price hikes in Tampa Bay, Florida, are the second highest at 4.3%, followed by he Twin Cities, Minnesota, at 4.2%.
When it comes to fresh produce, the Twin Cities saw the biggest spike among the 12 metro areas, with the cost of fruits and vegetables rising 6.9% from 2024. In Los Angeles, egg, meat, poultry and fish prices rose the most, at 9.8%, followed by the D.C. metro area at 9.4%.
By contrast, residents of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington experienced only a modest price hike of 2.1% on eggs, meat, poultry and fish.
While the report doesn’t specify the factors driving price changes from city to city, a combination of influences could be at play, said SmartAsset’s DeJohn. “A big factor for something like Honolulu is it’s isolated from the rest of the U.S.,” she said. “So, that’s a good illustration of how transportation costs where you’re located geographically compared to where your food is sourced can impact the prices big time.”
While price fluctuations varied from city to city, prices for egg, meats, poultry and fish went up in all metro areas, which DeJohn says were behind overall grocery cost increases across all 12 metro areas. “As we didn’t see such intense price increases across any other category of grocery, it was the egg and meat prices that were really driving the increase in grocery prices across the board in these metros,” she said.
The rise in egg prices at the metro level tracks with national BLS data. Egg prices have been climbing in large part due to the bird flu outbreak which has forced farmers to kill infected flocks to prevent the disease from spreading.
Are any cities seeing lower grocery prices?
Yes. Two metro areas in SmartAsset’s study — Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and Boston — saw a decrease in grocery prices of 0.1% and 0.7%, respectively, from a year ago.
Where are grocery prices headed?
A recent analysis by the Yale Budget Lab estimates that overall food prices will rise by 2.6% in the next three years, as a result of U.S. tariffs as well as reciprocal tariffs from foreign nations in place as of April 15. Fresh produce is estimated to rise 5.4%, according to the think tank, before stabilizing at 3.6% higher.
The USDA’s food price outlook, based on Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index data from this year and last, forecasts a slightly larger rise in overall food prices of 3.2%, with grocery store or supermarket food purchases, or food-at-home, increasing 2.7%.
Prices for dairy products and fresh vegetables will remain mostly unchanged, according to the USDA, but unfortunately for consumers, the cost of egg prices is expected to climb. Egg prices, which have soared over the past year, are expected to rise 57.6% in 2025, according to the report.
