I work in the industry for one of the major players. Our research and that of our customers (the largest retailers, producers, etc.) is showing that demand has collapsed >15% in the past ~5 years.
This is a longer term trend and the decline in consumption is almost entirely in low and middle income households.
Think about that for a moment: low and middle class folks are cutting back on food. Not just the past quarter or years. Over 5 years now. The decline is consistent and is ongoing.
For my company and what we do, it looks like the last quarter has finally stabilized from a financial perspective. We think. But, that has come on the back of shutting down a large number of sites, internal reorganization, slashing costs, and getting into bed with a PE firm. It is also coming on the back of smaller players closing shop.
A lot of parents are also just not shopping like their parents did. There’s a whole subset of people who are never going to by Little Debbie’s, Doritos, lunch meat, American cheese, canned cinnamon rolls, etc., for health reasons and I really wonder how this affects grocery sales numbers. They make homemade desserts and bread, etc., choosing to indulge that way. Some of the things people are cutting back on are great things to cut back on.
I don't know if it's only health, though. I think it's one thing to buy unhealthy products when they're also cheap (I feel like Little Debbie's used to be like a buck fifty a box or something?) but if you're weighing the cost of buying Little Debbie's or getting like... food for lunch, you're going to scrap the unnecessary food first, regardless of health level.
That's kind of what I'm wondering. I live in WA, and there's a lot of people like my wife and I that have completely changed their eating and health habits in comparison to our parents' and their parents' generations. The simple act of cutting out unnecessary junk food/snacks eliminates shopping in like 80% of most grocery store aisles like safeway, fred meyer, Walmart, etc.
Population 2029-2026 has increased an estimated 6.32%.
So, 15% decline in absolute volume across a 6.32% increase in population translates to a 20% decline in per capita consumption (by volume). Price is another discussion of course.
I get a whole turkey breast from costco, cut it into 3 pieces, slice one up on the mandolin, and freeze the other two for later. It's way cheaper than buying regular lunch meat (and maybe slightly healthier, idk).
Past years I always came home with some sort of treats for fun - new cookies or candy, specialty chips to try out, bakery pastries, etc. I never buy that stuff anymore. If someone wants sweets, they have to go out and get it themselves. I don't do cost calculations, but I know my homemade cookies are a hell of a lot better than bakery stuff.
Exactly this. Our pantry and fridge looks completely different to my in laws.
I'd prefer to buy some grassfed organic beef and really enjoy my dinner than eat ultraprocessed snacks. I'll buy ingredients I can use across multiple meals or snacks, like plain whole Greek yogurt, frozen berries or a big thing of unseasoned nuts. I don't have a stock of condensed soup, or 3-5 cereal flavors, or even a thing of cookies.
We're a high income household and we really spend very little on groceries. Mostly plant based, very little prepackaged processed food. Turns out veggies, fruit, beans and rice are pretty cheap and healthy.
That's not what grocery retailers are reporting. If you look at identical sales comparisons for the big players (WalMart, Kroger, Albertsons, etc), they are growing close to the rate of inflation while margins have remained flat, so the Americans are buying about the same amount of groceries.
If you are talking Consumer Packaged Goods producers, then yes, many of them have seen significant declines; however, the fact that total grocery spend is flat indicates that consumers are shifting from packaged foods to other options, so they are not cutting back on food overall.
I think it is significant. Birth rates fell off a cliff after 2008 in particular, meaning we have less teenagers now, which is a prime age for snacking and convenience foods (if a household has kids with activities at different times, having frozen dinners allows each to each when he gets home).
So.... The 2020 bread baking craze showed everyone that allowing someone else to package your food for convenience was not only more expensive but provides food that is less good? Over the past 5 years, people have been learning how to make more and more of their own food from more basic ingredients.
In 2020, we went down to one income for about 3 months during Covid lockdowns. We worked very hard to be more intentional about minimizing food waste and buying more essentials/basic ingredients that could be used for many meals. We saved so much money and had better food so we have just kept it up.
I can actually see that working. I'd guess that a lot of people just don't have the foundational knowledge/experience of cooking. A few years with a service like that teaches the basic skills and lets you see how ingredients become food. Once you see the patterns, you can begin to build your own meals. Neat insight.
They do give you a good start and also present a good framework to experiment such as adding some vinegar to your veggies or seasoning aggressively to bring out flavor.
Yes and no. I mean they give a good starting point but if you make their Asian meals some of them aren't exactly all that representative, but they might get you into an Asian Market where you can buy the real deal.
But they do teach some basic skills to those who don't know them and they introduce ideas of seasoning and adding acid to meals.
This is true. As expensive as GLP-1s are, they are still cheaper than a month of groceries. It’s cheaper to take drugs and not eat. Are we winning yet?
So I'm on glp1s and it probably does save me the same that I would have spent on groceries each month. I think that just goes to show how much crap I was buying that I didn't need though.
Now the focus is on right sizing my habits so that I can try to maintain my weight without meds once I hit my goal.
Our grocery bill went from over $600 a month to around $300. I don’t buy junky snacks and sugary drinks any more, plus I eat less so I just have leftovers for multiple days instead of having to cook a new meal every night. Our alcohol bill has gone way down too.
I'm probably eating a sustained 500 to 1000 calories less daily now than I was at my starting weight. I'm easily saving between $100 and $200 a month on food and alcohol costs.
Back in the late 00's/early10's I literally watched friends openly admitting to turning to heroin because working 50 hours a week they could afford a roof or food, but not both. Telling me that being homeless was the worst thing they had ever gone through and they'd rather do heroin to not be hungry than to be homeless again. Heroin was so much cheaper than food and made them not feel hungry.
You are obviously a man. In menopause your metabolism grinds to a fucking halt and you have to literally starve yourself to keep weight off and even then you often can’t. Ask any older woman in your life about the changes your body goes through. I dont understand the science completely but GLP-1s seem to get the juices flowing again
I mean, I do the save money on food and then spend money on clothes for my new skinny body and on going out. I was lucky to be able to do it without any drugs, but I fully support the use of the drugs for folks that want or need to go that route.
My household is just me, an older single woman. I can get by buying almost no groceries. I’m pretty sure there are an increasing number of households like mine.
Co-pay for my wife to take those meds for her diabetes is $445 a month for the first seven months of the year. So let's average that. 7 x 445 = $3115 a year, or $260 a month.
I just spent $275 on two weeks of groceries, so $550 a month on groceries. No chicken. No beef. No pork besides some sausage and spam. All store-brand stuff, no name brands.
So yeah, MUCH cheaper to buy some medications than eat.
Agreed, I’d imagine the growing availability of GLP-1 drugs is another contributing factor. I know of 5 friends and colleagues who currently take Ozempic or some equivalent. Apparently 12% of American adults are now on GLP-1s.
A couple of my coworkers are on GLP-1s and it’s honestly wild to see over time. They’re more fit and say they feel more energised, which is the opposite of what I expected. One coworker even mentioned she doesn’t feel the same afternoon slump that she used to, and thinks it might be from the weight loss.
So as much as I might joke about stuff like Ozempic, it does genuinely seem to be a great thing for people.
So it actually helps keep blood sugar stabilized by preventing insulin surges (especially after meals), slows gastric emptying meaning your body works longer on foods digestion, and prevents the liver from delivering glucose derivatives into your bloodstream that keeps energy feeling even.
The afternoon slump is likely because she isn't snacking or eating junk food. If you have a lot of carbs or sugar for lunch, your blood sugar rises and then crashes, which can cause tiredness. Think soda, chips, muffins, cake, etc. All those foods you find in a typical work break room.
Also, don't confuse fit and lean/skinny. If they're not working out, they aren't any fitter than they were before.
I don’t know all their habits but the colleague who specifically mentioned feeling more energised said she goes to the gym regularly. She has always been somewhat active, so I think this was just the extra bit needed.
That’s not a bad thing other than for food retailers wanting people to overeat. 12% of Americans are utilizing tools available to them to increase their quality of life. Good on them.
That is a interesting point but I question how that reconciles with the low and middle income point of the parent comment. Also I don’t know the true scale of GLP-1 use for different socioeconomic categories. I have heard that higher end restaurants in LA are being hit by high GLP-1 usage.
Anecdotal but I know a lot of low income people on it. Most insurance plans cover it for diabetes or other weight-related conditions. I’m on it for purely weight loss and it’s only $25 a month on a pretty standard insurance plan. It’s just buying it without insurance that can be quite expensive.
I'd love to know which insurances those are. In the past 2 years, I've had 3 insurance providers, and not one of them would cover it unless I was diabetic. I pay $454/month out of pocket for it right now, direct from Lily.
I think that in the 2 years this will be down by half because Lilly has other things coming. I stockpiled cash buy Moujaro for the same price. 15mg vials but I maintain at 5mg so my cost per month is around $80. My insurance rejected it because I showed no evidence of diabetes...even though Im a diabetic.
If low & middle incomes are cutting back on everyday groceries, I highly doubt they can afford GLP-1s. I’m not doubting the impact of them, but I imagine the impact of Ozempic is far less than the impact of lower income homes nationwide cutting back for years now.
I pay $200/mo, but I easily make that back because I stopped eating out so much... used to eat out 10-15 times per month at $20-$30 a pop, and now it's less than 4 times
Maybe, but prior to SNAP being cut the decline was already at 15%.
I am curious to know what the current data is showing. I know that for my particular company we seem to have stabilized, but I don’t know how the broader industry is at this moment.
A few months after moving in, I built a large garden in my backyard and met a lot of people at Home Depot building or expanding their gardens. Fresh produce has gotten much more expensive and worse quality, so it’s nice to be able to go outside and pick my veggies and some berries.
I planted fruits. Peach, pear, fig, loquat trees & berries. Next is grapes & crab apples. Remember our grandparents had food sources in their back yards. Heck, mine even made their own pickles!
I don’t buy pickles anymore. Haven’t for at least 15 years. Found a good recipe for dill pickles. I used to go to the farm store and buy a big bag of cukes, but now I grow them.
I generally can enough dill pickles for two years, and then the next year I’ll can enough bread and butter pickles for two years.
Pickle crisp and low temperature pasteurization makes crisp dill pickles.
I think that answer depends on how comfy you are with canning. The source recipe is from The Oregonian, and current guidelines from r/canning seem to indicate that one garlic clove per pint is the maximum, and the original recipe calls for the equivalent of 2 per pint.
Anyway, I mash up the guidance at https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/ferment/recipes/dill-pickles/ (which discusses the low pasteurization method)
I'm growing a couple of pepper plants for the first time and I really want to can what I get. Unfortunately I just can't afford to buy the pressure canning stuff at the store, so I'm gonna just pickle them. Maybe turn some of it into a fermented hot sauce. I love peppers and go through them pretty fast, but hopefully next year I'll be able to get a canner so I can grow more stuff and maybe can and preserve more stuff.
I’ve lactofermented peppers with garlic and it turned out fantastic. I did 3.5% salt by weight (including water) and it didn’t even grow any kham yeast. After a few weeks blend up and store in a sterile jar in the fridge!
Every year I plant more and more. This year it was herbs and raspberries out back and pollinator friendly low water natives out front. I think grapes is next as well as some fruit trees out back.
I just planted thyme! The last owners were big fans of rock gardens, so it’s a process to remove all that to free up more space for herbs. It’s slowly coming together!
A few weeks ago I rang up a russet potato at the checkout, and it was almost $2. For something that used to be the cheapest reliable staple in my diet. Shit is crazy.
What on earth? Sold individually, russet potatoes are currently $.59 at my Kroger affiliate. A 5# bag (~15 potatoes) is $2.69 or $.18 per potato. Even Yukon Gold potatoes, which I prefer, are only $.39 per potato when purchased in a 5# bag. I buy potatoes all the time, and while they've definitely risen in price, I've never seen them at $2.00 each. That's insane!
Even for a large potato, that's an appalling price!
Meal planning and shopping within a budget definitely take more time now, but there are still bargains to be had. Kroger's, despite its reputation, has decent prices on staples. I feed two middle-aged adults a week's worth of meals for about $150. I'm sure others could do better, but that's a reasonable budget for me.
It’s summer so I’m swimming in summer squash. Neighbors stop by for free eggs and I load them up with squash too.
I do love squash- zucchini fritters, zucchini muffins, sautéed zucchini with carrots, etc. One of my favs currently is puff pastry with some red pesto, Gruyere cheese, and thinly sliced squash brushed with herbed olive oil. It’s a meal in itself.
We’ve been eating raspberries and loganberries from the backyard, and the blueberry bushes are just showing a hit of ripe fruit. Our yard isn’t big enough to have a ton of any of that, but it keeps us from buying a couple of pints of fruit a week during the berry season. If I want to make jam, I still need to buy a half flat of berries. It doesn’t help that our pups help themselves to what they can reach.
I couldn’t rely on my garden for all of my produce needs but I can offset a lot of cost, especially during the summer.
Anyway, I have two Goldini plants (yellow squash that is good for dehydrating as it doesn’t turn bitter when dried), two mexicana zuke (grey zuke), one green patty pan, one “orange” patty pan, two round zukes (that are giving me a few each day), and one more in my main garden that I can’t remember what it is and it hasn’t produced yet.
I also threw all my extra starts in one spot, and it seems to be a mix of straight neck yellow and crooked neck yellow. I do have one other yellow squash plant at the base of a tomato too.
So a ton. More than I need for 2 people, but like I said, I give a ton away.
Spidermites have been eating all my tomato plants despite neem oil and diatanaceious earth put out once a week after it rains. Spraying the underside of the leaves, too. I will prob not get any tomatoes this year. Something already ate my bell pepper plants.
Honestly we should never have stopped. My parents gave up their garden when they moved to a bigger house and I remember picking raspberries so fondly as a child.
People in this sub told me the other day that people making $50K per annum can easily cut out $10-20K per annum to save. The suggestion to stabilize yourself and your family is to revert from general poverty to baseline extreme poverty. It’s amazing how economically illiterate people are in this sub when the data tells a completely different story.
Might've been possible before Covid, but zero chance somebody making 50K/yr could pull that off today unless they're living with parents and have zero overhead expenditure.
I assume there is a ton of substitution that is taking place. IE: Less discretionary spending on items that are not "essential" (snacks and crap) and also purchasing non-brand name items, grnd beef instead of steak, etc etc
The number of pallets being utilized (stored/shipped) is down.
For us, it doesn’t matter if something is name brand or not. Moving/handling/storing/loading/etc. a pallet costs the same no matter the brand name on the product. If a consumer switches from eating name brand broccoli (for example) to eating private label broccoli there would be a 1:1 volume. But we aren’t seeing that. Instead, we are seeing 1:0.85.
When we look at the top line numbers it doesn’t look that bad. Grocery unit sales are down 1.8% in the past year but food prices are up 33% higher since 2019. Prices are way up, unit sales are down and population has grown.
So more people are buying less volume today than what fewer people were buying 6 years ago. And prices have outstripped everything which is why the overwhelming portion of the volume decline is from low & middle income consumers; they have less cushion to absorb price increases.
This is reflected in the rest of the economy as the top 10% of consumers are responsible for half of all consumer spending. It is that top sliver that is driving economic gains while the bottom 90% are reducing spend (the so called “k shaped” economy).
Anecdotal: We have cut back on grocery spending. Not on food in general, but WHAT we buy has shifted in a way that reduces our expenses. We’ve shared our methods and logic with family and friends, and many have made similar adjustments.
80+% of our spending is on “perimeter products”…stuff outside the actual aisles. Produce, meats (usually stuff on sale), dairy…stuff like that. For us, a non-aisle grocery trip is a win. Even within the aisles, we stick to staples. Rice, beans, coffee, spices…stuff like that. We stopped deviating from our grocery list. No more browsing or randomly buying items. Get in, grab what we need, get out. We’ve stopped buying precooked food almost entirely.
We still spend more than we did in the past, but we’ve managed to keep expenses reasonable. A nice side-effect is that we cook way, way more. Cutting out aisle garbage also means that we can spend a bit more on higher quality fresh food.
Companies sell what people buy. No one is forcing anyone to eat chips. You can buy a liter of Sofa in France but no one there would ever drink it in one shot.
Behavioral compulsion, which is how "sugar addiction" is properly classified does not function like drug addiction. There is no physical dependency, no withdrawals. So no it's not real in the sense that you mean. And again you see similar availability in many countries with large differences in consumption, and it seems clear that cultural factors dominate food consumption trends.
That is still addiction. Unless you are saying People can't get porn, gambling, or weed addictions either.
Also, there is a physical component to sugar "addiction". The problem is, as I said previously, we don't exactly know what those physical components are or how strong they can be. And the research that is there is muddied by obviously bad faith research done by the Sugar Association(yes that is their real trade group name).
Also I didn't deny the cultural impact on use. That impacts even "established" drugs like alcohol, where binge drinking culture varies from place to place. Just because there are strong cultural aspects doesn't mean that is the only factor.
> The actual answer is that you shift away from products (Frito-lays got hit hard) and into staples.
I recently watched a decent analysis on McDonald's business cycle - they go oscillate between cheap / low margin and getting greedy for shareholders.
I think that this rings true for a lot of junk food products. At the end of the day, a bag of Doritos is a discretionary purchase. Chicken isn't. These companies jacked up prices way beyond inflation and consumers are noping out.
It's been (anecdotally) alluded to throughout these comments: people are probably buying less name brand and processed foods (chips, soda, pre-baked bread, etc) and instead are likely buying more raw ingredients and making whatever they want.
I know personally if my family wants bread for the week, I either go to a local bakery to splurge for the good stuff (similar price to the local grocery store's bakery now) or we just make bread at home.
I know everyone is pointing to this being a bad economic thing, and it is, but hell maybe this will inadvertently help us kick our ~40% obesity rate
People buy lower quality meat, like hot dogs or spam, or go for cheaper meats like chicken or pork instead of beef. People buy more store brands rather than name brands. People shop at cheaper stores like Aldi.
The cost of produce and staples must not be skyrocketing where you are. It’s cheaper to be healthy but it’s even cheaper to just barely eat at all.
I do agree that a lot of the US eats unhealthily and is fat but we are approaching a dystopian scenario where having a balanced diet is quickly becoming out of reach for many Americans
Not an expert but a first guess might be being stricter about food waste. Americans historically waste about half of the food we buy. But if you don’t have more money for groceries, you’re a lot more likely to reheat those leftovers instead of letting them go bad, more likely to scold your children to finish their plate before running off, more likely to eat those last few bites instead of throwing them down the garbage disposal, etc.
and even most of what you would think is ice cream, isn’t actually ice cream any more its like a “dairy desert” or some other clever wording because ice cream has a specific definition that they don’t meet anymore in order to cut costs
Shift to private label and buying more products on sale or in club stores. Buying less pre packaged food and more ingredients. You pay a lot for convenience with those. Skip the organic stuff.
A while back when Walmarts ceo was saying the consumer was exhibiting “stressed behavior” this is what he meant since they see all this in their scanner data.
I buy exactly what I need for the week; enough food to make 21 square meals, and some snacks. I account that I'll probably eat out lunch at work once, and grab a dinner over the weekend. I've cut out name brands entirely, generic is perfectly fine, and probably healthier.
How much of that research has seen the shift from packaged to raw goods? My n=1 is that i shifted my spending in the past years to forcing extra time spent at home preparing foods and meals because the packaged prepared foods stopped competing on the cost vs time spent aspect.
I am not in grocery industry, but in the distribution/storage space.
Googling it, the grocery store profit margin averages between 1.6%-2.5%. I know that my company, and others in our space, also have low-mid single digit margins (based on earnings calls and what not).
It is odd, to me, that an industry that we cannot live without is priced as though it is optional. Meanwhile, optional things, stuff (like the phone I am tapping on) I would probably have a better life without, the margins are insane. We will die without efficient, reliable and safe food production & distribution. It is a massive logistics ecosystem and is valued like it isn’t important at all.
Food is a highly highy competitive marketplace. Both "externally"(Kroger vs Walmart vs Trader Joe's etc), and "internally"(Pepsi vs coke, Eteman's vs Little Debbie). Market theory says more competition means lower margins(which is why Kroger is trying to buy up everything).
That competition should drive down prices, but since 2019 prices have increased 33%.
What I am talking about is the volumes moving through the system. The industry throughput has declined in absolute terms >15%. Factoring in population growth, the per capita consumption in terms of volume decline is a little over 20% less today than in 2019.
Some of the price increases are due to world economic issues. Some are just plain greed combined with collusion and illegal deals(like Walmart working with Coke to guarantee their price is lower than independent grocery chains).
If the US had a government that actually gave even half a shit about its citizens, the DOJ would figure out which is which and hold people accountable.
Input costs are increasing as fuel, electricity, fertilizer and labor costs have skyrocketed. Some are “self owns,” such as the impact that fighting Iran has had on fuel prices as well as the impact of deporting much for the harvest/meat processing labor force. Others are more external, such as Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine.
Yeah back when I worked at a local grocer (that has since gone out of business), the store operator told me that they basically break even on all of the food in the aisles (chips, sodas, cans, etc.)
He said the profit makers were bakery/deli, produce, meat dept, and floral.
Right? It's terrifying. And they're slowly infiltrating everything in our lives, food, housing, healthcare, even our college football. All human activity will be subordinated to these vultures and we have zero say in it.
The major players will be gutted as Boomers die off and demand for legacy brand ultra processed foods plummets. Claiming demand drop of that scale on food is a lie management has bought into to excuse poor performance. I was BSing with the dude who manages the Indian grocery store by my house a couple weeks ago and he said they’re going through site acquisition for two more stores so I guess the demand side depends on who you ask. And if you go to the Latin or Asian grocers now probably over half the customers are white. I’d much rather own a piece of Goya or Mirch Masala than Campbell’s or Frito Lay right now.
That may happen over time, but since 2019 the US population has increased 6.3%. So, if the amount of food we consumed had stayed the same we should have seen an increase in volume shipped through the distribution eco system.
But, even as population has increased, the absolute volume has decreased. Adjusting for per capita figures, the volume/amount of food being consumed has declined 20% since 2019. We are also spending significantly more on a per unit basis, 33%, than we did the.
You spoke with a single store owner and his experience. That is a mini-micro anecdote. I am working with the macro numbers the industry is tracking. On a personal level the guy is doing well, expanding his particular business. Great. But on a macro level, the absolute collective volumes moving through the system are declining as prices and population increase.
I disagree. The gutting of major American industrial food is happening now. While I don’t doubt that price increases have materially impaired sales, I suspect that there is also a massive blind spot in data aggregation because it’s reliant on companies like Kroger, Wal Mart or Publix that have state of the art POS systems that give real time SKU data. Those guys will all insist the food business is dying.
The majority of growth in US population since 2019 is from immigration. There are immigrant focused markets akin to Aldi (small footprint, low SKU count) popping up at breakneck speed all over the country. They operate in a parallel economy where a lot of them handle a chunk of their own logistics. They don’t run POS systems. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell they are getting picked up properly by these data aggregators. But everyone needs a story to pitch to their boss and ultimately the shareholders. The fact of the matter is if you lose a few million Boomers a year and replace them with people from Venezuela or India you ain’t gonna sell as many Ritz crackers and there is a structural change afoot for old line American food brands that is far more complex than just “prices went up so people are eating less.”
If you’re the first person in your company willing to pull your head out of the sand and go observe these businesses you might become chairman or CEO if you figure out how to skate where the puck is going. There’s always a bull market somewhere.
Anyway, I’m sure your job is a royal pain in the butt trying to handle volume slippage in a critical industry and I shudder to think about what volume losses are doing to your marginal costs. The world is held up by folks like you fighting these utterly impossible battles that few people comprehend and I’ll bet you get little appreciation at work, so as a consumer who understands how difficult your task must be I sincerely thank you for helping hold up your piece of the industrial economy that helps feed us. Seriously thank you!
What leads you to believe that it's boomers eating all the ultra processed foods? I would venture to say that most of us grew up eating home cooked meals and didn't develop a taste for junk food. Eating out was also a rare treat when we were kids. I've never set foot in a McDonalds.
Do you see what segments people are cutting back on? Every time these threads come up the top comments (like ITT) are talking about chips and soda. Curious if it’s the snack segment taking the biggest hit
Our business is biased to things that need some sort of temperature control. So, anything needing refrigeration or freezing. There is a lot of processed foods (icecream, frozen veggies, etc) in there but also a lot of fresh stuff. We also work between farmers and manufacturers and the data I have seen is that the throughout of the fundamental ingredients has also declined.
Wheat production for 2026 is forecasted to be 25% below 2019. Soy production has increased; this so being driven in part because soy uses less water and fertilizer. We are currently experiencing significant fraught and extremely high fertilizer costs. Same when compared to corn; sounds a cheaper thing to farm.
Farmers are struggling like crazy right now. Input costs are sky high, the prices farmers can get are low, and the impact of environmental factors (heat/draught) are reducing yields.
They are. Look up Smuckers’ 2023 purchase of Hostess Brands and the revenue black hole that has been for them. They’ve had to take on $3B in impairment charges since their $5.6B purchase.
this thread is what brings me back to reddit despite my aversion to "social media." so many details from people who are living the life and can contribute facts. thank you for yours and thanks to the people below. MEGA INSIGHT.
So grocers throw away a lot of food. Has there been a shift in more expensive stuff getting thrown away because people either can't afford it or choose to buy cheaper alternatives? What is the tipping point that they stop stocking certain items because they throw away more than they sell?
So has the amount of expensive stuff you distributed gone down in that same span of time? If you don't know that is fine, but the consumer purchases is directly connected to the wholesale side. If consumers aren't buying X product as much, the amount of orders to the wholesale side decline as well.
That is a good question. We are not a wholesaler; we are strictly logistics/distribution.
The final price the consumer pays has a bunch of inputs, one of which is what we charge to move/store/etc. product. But what we charge to do that is not connected to the value of the item itself. It has more to do with how much something weighs, what its dimensions are and what sort of environmental controls are required.
In addition to absolute volumes decreasing (putting downward pressure on rates) the industry is also reeling from a dramatic increase in industry capacity of 15%. So, 15% more capacity so chasing 15% lower demand. That has led to enormous pressure to lower rates industrywide. That has actually led to our part of the final price actually shrinking.
As you well know I’m sure, since you’re in the movement operations, your indirect contribution to price is the logistics costs.
Obviously vendors usually avoid telling you info like how they exactly incorporate cost of logistics into their final margin, but it’s almost guaranteed that they do. Consumers don’t think about those costs being part of the equation.
Yes, I’m sure to an extent ooga booga big corporations greedy is true. But in reality, costs are up in every part of the supply chain and there’s no denying it.
(I’m a logistics major, former freight broker, USDA food program transportation coordinator and now demand planner for retailer in a non food industry, so I understand your insights deeply and appreciate that you’re giving them to us)
Interestingly, 40-43% of American adults are clinically obese.
For comparison:
EU: 17%
UK: 30%
China: 16% (was at 3.1% in 2004)
Australia: 33%
Canada: 33%
Eating less would help, living less sedentary lifestyles would be better. Combining fewer calories, more everyday (“incidental”) activity with better nutrition (in other words, less ultra processed food) would be best.
What I work with is volume. A pallet/ton of Lays chips (for example) costs, weighs, and is otherwise identical to store brand potato chips. The cost to move them is the same. The price we charge is the same between the two.
The volume data is showing a dramatic decline in consumption, almost all of it in lower-middle income households. Adjusting for inflation growth, that absolute >15% decline in volume translates to a per capita reduction of 20%. The overwhelming majority fit that decline is in the low & middle.
High income households are consuming similarly to before.
Interestingly enough, my industry cannot increase price. We are also dealing with an increase in industry capacity while volume declined.
So more capacity chasing lower volume = lower prices we can charge. Add increased costs such as fuel and electricity, margins have been dramatically compressed industrywide.
Our industry works primarily with stuff that needs refrigeration and storage.
The sort of shelf stable “junk” food isn’t a big part of our business. Though we, and everyone else, is desperately trying to capture that side of things too. Firstly it would mean that available warehouse space could be utilized and not vacant (thus generating revenue) and the costs associated with dry storage are dramatically lower.
Less cooling demand translates to less HVAC infrastructure CapEx, less maintenance, less energy demand, less insulation and mitigation efforts to prevent thermal spillage. And, as I noted above, it also translates to utilizing previously vacant sites. Those sites either have to be divested, often at a loss as a direct result of increased capacity driven by PE backed “wildcatters” and reduced demand, or they have to continue to be maintained. That maintenance means electricity, cooling units still have to be turned on (they have a tendency to break when left off), taxes have to be paid, employees have to be employed even at a reduced headcount. And, that underutilized capacity is a drag on financials which further translates into higher borrowing costs.
Demand in absolute measures has declined over 15%, concentrated overwhelmingly in lower to middle income households. Demand also started collapsing prior to the inflation of the past few years.
Meanwhile, inputs (fuel, fertilizer, labor) costs have increased. Add to that environmental impacts have put enormous pressure on crop yields.
The per capita reduction in volume demand is 20%. I l ow that list of the demand decrease is focused on the low and middle groups; I would live to see how those two groups have seen their per capita consumption change; it has to be much greater than 20%.
You must not work for Costco. Your major industry player is probably running your business in a way that benefits the stakeholders (your PE firm, and C-suite), rather than the customers. There are definite systemic problems that I'm sure you're seeing in your research but the greed/inequality that has captured this economy I think is the real story. And not all companies are burning up their customer good will to boost profits.
No shit, things doubled under covid because of "supply chain issue" and then never came down after those "issues" disappeared and everything still has continued to rise over the last 5 years.
I run a small business and I'm down 33% this year compared to last. I've tried to scale up a bit to get more sales volume but there's only so much you can do to get customer to purchase an item. It doesn't help that USPS just increased the rates for lightweight packages so now the average cost to ship a package with tracking with the cheapest USPS option is $6 even if the item is one ounce.
I’m firmly middle class and have no debts besides a mortgage. I refuse to go out to eat and my grocery store shopping habits have been pared down a lot. I don’t believe for a second that these price increases are just inflation. It’s complete and utter greed and I’m happy to see the lot of these businesses fail. Fuck the government for failing its citizens but absolutely fuck every company hiding behind “inflation”
Just throwing this out there. My wife and I got on GLP-1 and literally cut our grocery shopping in half.
Not saying enough people are on GLP-1s to create a national level dent just saying I believe if people are eating as much as they should they would buy half the food
This may not relate to the lower middle class part. But GLP1s play a role too. People with the disposable income who take these drugs suppress their appetites and then its still the novelty food being cut as they lose the taste for it.
I don’t have a breakdown of the mix of less/more healthy.
I just did some bak of the napkin math, on a per capita basis, the amount of food Americans are consuming 2019 vs now is down >20%. Those are just volume numbers based on the number of pallets the food logistics industry is moving.
Industry volume decreased >15% in absolute terms while population increased 6.32%. So, adjusting for those figures we get a per capita reduction of just over 20% in outright volume (the amount we are eating).
We'll you have to factor in the immigration enforcement actions in both voluntary returns, involuntary deportations. You also have to factor in changes to food stamps work requirements which subsidize some food categories as millions dropped off for stamps once work requirements were instituted. Other comments have mentioned the trust of GLP-1 and weight loss drugs resulting in less calories being eaten.
It's anecdotal but I've personally cut back quite a bit on the consumption side myself. I rarely buy snacks anymore and mostly resort to meal prep.
Those sorts of things affect the cost of production and the end price.
I am dealing entirely with volume and treating it as a metric for measuring the amount of food people are putting into their mouths regardless of price.
The impact of GLPs is interesting. Users cut “bad” food purchases and increase “healthy” food purchases while simultaneously reducing overall caloric intake by 16-40% (a huge range btw but that is all I could find).
Meanwhile, only 11% of Americans are on GLPs. Of that population, 44% fall into the upper income bracket. That upper income population is mot the cohort that is driving the reduction in volumes. So, we can safely conclude that the impact of GLPs is not a significant driver in the overall industry volume at a macro level.
Adding to the discussion here; is there data on “what” foods? Like has consumption gone down as a whole but in fact we are buying less and less fruit roll ups and Cocoa Puffs and but maintaining normal levels of fruit/veggies and meat dairy? Basically asking are people cutting back spending on what I’d term “low nutritional value/high cost” foods?
Sorry, but I love that for your industry. I hope it collapses another 15-20%. I'm so thrilled to shift as many $ as possible away from industry food to local food and our family thinks is an honor to do away with processed shit now. The industry got way too greedy.
In addition to the many excellent reasons outlined in other comments, I think a contributing factor might also be changing demographics. Fewer families with children and a growing percentage of older people is shifting demand. Kids eat a lot, and older people do not. Fewer kids and more older people would make a noticeable difference in purchase patterns.
there are also a LOT of childless couples who end up doing meal service plans especially if both are working full time. either pre-made or ingredients delivered to make yourself. people just dont have the time or energy to cook as much as they used to
personally, my wife and i dont have the time or energy to meal plan, shop, and cook weekly. and too much food ended up getting wasted anyway, i hated it. so we buy pre-prepped meals that are fresh and delivered weekly.
i used to argue "its more expensive than grocery shopping but still cheaper than takeout"....and now im not even so sure about that, it may be cheaper than groceries now.
My husband and I used a meal service plan for about a year, and I eventually canceled because I found it much more expensive than going to the grocery store myself. Also, I found the meals boring and repetitive. That being said, I am an extremely conscientious meal planner and shopper, so that changes the dynamic. On the other hand, my adult daughter uses the same service and saves money because it keeps them from eating out.
if my wife and i didnt do a meal service, we'd just end up ordering out all the time. im also not sure how well these plans scale with more than 2 people. the more people you are cooking for the more sense i think grocery shopping makes. but again....the time it takes is the real barrier for me
Two people is definitely the sweet spot, but I still find shopping myself to be more economical. When I was using the meal service during a challenging year, we were spending $185 for 20 meals a week (5 dinners and 5 lunches for two), which doesn't seem so bad, but that covered only the weekdays and it didn't include breakfasts, so I still had to go to the grocery and was spending quite a bit more than that when all was said and done. I now spend about $150/week on groceries in one trip per week, cooking all meals at home, so I'm saving significant money on food by doing it myself. However, you're not wrong that it does take time and energy that many people do not want to spend on preparing meals.
Edit: On a positive note, that meal service permanently reset my perspective on portion sizes, which I desperately needed after becoming an empty nester, so there was a benefit to the experiment. I learned how much food is enough for two people, which changed my shopping habits and reduced our household waste.
This is how my husband and I justify buying the fancy expensive frozen foods. Like sure, is it probably cheaper to either make lasagna or get the cheapest frozen lasagna than the nice one that's twice the price? Yeah, but if my options at home are "make a lasagna from scratch" or "shitty lasagna," I'm just going to grab a pickup order from a restaurant. So, I'm grabbing the fancy whole foods lasagna because I will actually eat it.
This is one glaring issue of the current economic policy displayed in inelastic goods like groceries. No matter how rich you are, you’re only buying one carton of eggs/gallon of milk/loaf of bread a week.
THEY DID IT TO THEMSELVES! They raised prices more than they needed to be raised to rape the customer and now complain when the customer sees them as rapists. F them. Costco, farmers markets, and a local independent grocery in my area are all I need. The rest can go down the drain for all I care.
Grocery stores are keeping the lid on prices, offering promotions and discounts to entice shoppers.
CPI declined 0.4% from May to June. Many are quick to attribute it to price of oil and gasoline declining. Food inflation may also have been slightly negative.
>CPI declined 0.4% from May to June. Many are quick to attribute it to price of oil and gasoline declining. Food inflation may also have been slightly negative.
We don’t need to guess. I don’t know why people do this, just put wild guesses on here as if it’s informational, when the data is right here.
Energy as a broad sector was down 5.7%, being the primary driving force behind a negative CPI print. That’s not “many are quick to attribute”, it’s the data.
Both food away from home and food at home increased 0.2% month over month, which still shows decent price pressure there.
No guess work needed. Data straight from yesterday's PPI report:
Wholesale food prices fell 0.6%, with the cost of fresh fruits and melons declining 2.2%. Fresh and dried vegetable prices dropped 6.0%, while the cost of grains plunged 12.0%. There were also decreases in the prices of eggs, oil seeds, beef, pork and poultry.
Why link to a news article? The PPI report is right here: https://www.bls.gov/web/ppi/ppi_dr.pdf
Also, this is PPI, which isn’t CPI. This is not measuring the price of foods in grocery stores, the CPI report does that. This is measuring various stages of production chains.
None of those decreases in PPI have made it to actual grocery prices, as you can see in the CPI report.
Your earlier comment implied you were guessing, but now it just seems like you’re confused about the reports you’re looking at.
You are correct, it was PPI. Lower prices paid by wholesalers should lead to lower retail prices which means food at home will likely decrease month over month when next CPI is released.
“Might” is the word you’re looking for, not “should”. Wholesale, especially in grocery, is often volatile and not directly reflective of pricing on the shelves. There’s a smoothing effect here that matters a lot, not to mention how overhead and other factors impact final pricing that’s not included in intermediate steps.
100% this. Same way cigarette companies saw reduced sales but cranked prices on remaining users in the 80s/90s to keep profits up.
Junk food/soda manufacturers saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and began changing their businesses, their price increases on legacy junk food are part of their strategy as demand drops.
This. Pretty amazing that’s just ignored because it’s the #1 reason sales are down. Fat people are eating less and getting healthier. That’s a good thing.
Premade delivery services have virtually no impact on grocery sales. It’s a small niche that you have surrounded yourself with and think it bigger than jt actually is
Wholesale food prices fell 0.6%, with the cost of fresh fruits and melons declining 2.2%. Fresh and dried vegetable prices dropped 6.0%, while the cost of grains plunged 12.0%. There were also decreases in the prices of eggs, oil seeds, beef, pork and poultry.
I looked it up. Folks on GLPs spend 5.6% less on groceries within 6 months. Those folks also significantly cut down on snacks/ultra processed foods but also increase their spending on fresh/minimally processed foods. But it nets out to a 5.6% reduction in grocery spending (think dollars) and another 6% decline in dollars spent eating out.
Meanwhile, our portion of the food industry (logistics/storage/distribution) has seen a decline in volume of >15% in the past ~5 years. Meanwhile, the populations has grown over 6%.
So more people are consuming less in absolute terms vs 5 years ago. Adjusted for the upward population growth,ends that individual Americans are cutting volume of over 15%. Unfortunately, I do not have the raw data for industry pallet volumes, but the downward change is >15% 2019-2026, but we can do some quick math to kinda wrap our heads around it.
US Pop
2019 328.2M
2026 349M (6.32% growth)
Let’s assume that each person consumed 10 pallets in 2019, and now are consuming 8.5 pallets (reflecting the 15% decline in volume). Meanwhile, prices have increased 33% (dining out has increased 50% btw).
Now, for the sake of comparison, let’s assume consumption stayed the same: in 2019 the US would have consumed 3.28B pallets and had consumption stayed the same we would now be consuming 3.49B which reflects that 6.32% population growth.
But, we aren’t seeing that. Instead, absolute volumes have declined >15%. So instead of 3.49B pallets, Americans are actually consuming 2.89B. On a per capita basis, the average volume of food consumed has declined to just under 8. This is just over 20% decline in the amount - not the dollars spent - of food people are consuming.
In the meantime, food prices have increased an average of ~33%. So even as we are eating dramatically less food in outright terms, we are spending more.
I know this isn't the point ,but they thought all their products were absolutely necessary so they could jack up the prices and we would just pay them the price they demand .not true at all
I think the prices are a large factor, but I also think that a lot of people are becoming educated because of the prices, so are investigating what they are eating, at first it was because the prices were going up and up, but then they realised that the portions were going down and down (shrinkflation) so they started looking at competitors and other like products which made them start looking at labels, there they noticed ingredients and how much crap was actually in their foods and they started to take note of this and started looking for things with a shorter ingredient list, hey if prices were already sky high they might as well be choosey.
They started seeing this subject on social media, apps that actually tell the tale on all these food additives. People, because of the costs, have eventually started to desire real food again, and since roadside veggies are cheaper, and farmers markets often have a better deal, and they see what real food is, they kind of don't want the mass produced shit anymore.
I mean, when you can make and learn to make everything you can buy that’s prepackaged at the store, at your house, and it be 10x healthier and better for you, of course people are going to stop buying the junk. We’ve bought a bread maker and learned to make our own bread that is 10x better tasting than the processed bread you buy at the store…
Realizing that this is an Econ forum not an investing forum, but interesting to see this article and thread juxtaposed with the fact that VDC is up 2% today…curious as to why this data does not seem to be scaring the market.
If you kept your ears close to the ground, you would have already caught on to this trend as much as a year ago. Bain finally published the data/analysis this week for June 2026. Assuming traders are keeping their ears close to the ground, this data should come as no surprise. They probably already reacted a long time ago. Maybe the low that VDC hit in early November 2025 was a result of traders reacting to the early trend of slowdown in consumer staples?
Makes sense to me! Reports and research do absolutely tend to lag the underlying data, and the market doesn’t exactly wait around for peer / leadership / editorial review haha.
I suppose another explanation could simply be that there is sufficient desire to rotate out of tech and into traditionally defensive sectors that it still dominates perceived softness in those sectors (that is to say, grocery being down a bit is still less scary than a potential AI crash).
Rotation into defensive areas of the stock market probably is also supporting VDC price.
I only wish that our nation's "elite economists" (there are also a few of them in the Federal Reserve) kept their ears close to the ground to at least some degree rather than wait for published data, survey results etc. If they did that, they would not be behind the curve, be it raising rates or cutting rates.
I live in a more rural state. People in general have started buying locally, paying higher than even the store places. I wonder if this is widespread and has an effect on volume prices being bumped up. Particularly, beef eggs veggies bread and honey. Seems to be a thing everywhere. Literally farmers market downtown every weekend, plus local meat shops etc within 20 min any direction of town.
If prices are falling, this is a long time coming. They need to fall a heck of a lot in order to get even close to back where they were. No one can afford meat anymore. It’s ridiculous.
Such an easy solution. Just skip your avocado toast. Duh! We're all fucked. And it's just getting worse and worse out there. When you're shopping around for freaking meat, that's a problem.
Safeway prices are now literally outrageous. But, they've been using that "buy 4 @ $2.75" trick for several years. Notice it's almost never on healthy food. It's on anything with sugar/fake sugar, or over-processed corn or wheat. 4 oranges for $1.00? Butternut squash at $.50/lb? Not going to see that!
Best deal at my King Soopers, a Kroger affiliate, right now: $1.99 per lb. pork shoulder roast. I have a 7# roast in my freezer right now for making pulled pork. After it's braised, it will yield 14 servings, which I will portion and store in the freezer, where it will keep for several months. Meat for a dollar a serving? That's a steal! Note to self: need to make more room in my freezer.
They are starving us and they have made uncooked food unsafe to eat. America is rapidly devolving into third world status. And apparently some people are okay with this.
Personally I am shopping at farm stands more. I live close to beef, pork and poultry farms, eggs/milk/cheese are covered. We also have a garden. I'd say I use the grocery more for grain staples, and household goods.
Corporations shocked that people cut back after these same corporations start price gouging under the cover of inflation at even the hint of yet another crisis.
People are finally learning "moderation" through trumps shit policies and glp1s.
Everyone going to the farms and getting fresh produce now, just 5 or so some odd years ago people were making fun of "hipsters" for doing just that. Or adding "friction" to their lives.
Discounts won't be the way to go....more food companies will make things smaller to fit their margins. Instead of the 12oz Coke here's the 6oz coke, and on and on.
This sub will find a way to hand waive this and claim times are better than ever in history and this is totally normal market behavior in a perfectly oiled economy such as ours.
So, combined with the explosion in dieting drugs, seems like basically an expected result. The OP article seems to focus on price as a cause, but maybe increased prices are more of a response to broader trends.
Grocery companies will have to settle for regular profits instead of record breaking profits. Those oligarchs can save money by not going to Starbucks, buttered toast, and raping children from your church instead of paying for Epstein access.
Also worth noting: this article is based on observations from 2019, the overall inflation cycle, and price increases overall. This does not address the looming cliff we're facing in the lack of petrochemicals (fertilizers), and the increased cost of oil which impacts transportation, last mile transit, packaging, etc.
Of course, Americans don't care until it gets bad; until then they'll just keep blaming minorities and immigrants.
Too much fertilizer use causes salt accumulation, nutrient imbalances, and root damage. Instead of yielding more, overfed plants prioritize rapid leaf growth over fruit/grain development. This also degrades the soil's natural microbiome and makes crops more vulnerable to drought and disease. Lack of fertilizers, if the shortage lasts for a short period, may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
And what about too little fertilizer? What are the health benefits of people starving due to food insecurity and absence?
Please, explain to farmers how this may be a blessing in disguise, while they're bankrupted from tariffs and now seeing lower yields due to no fertilizers in the 2nd round window weeks ago?
Medium to high income earner in a MCOL area here. We abandoned shopping all together at chain grocery stores. We get staples from Walmart/meats from butcher box/and produce from farm stands.
Is that for prices or for some other reason? Farm stands around here are more money than grocery stores because they basically cater to city people who drive out here to see the “cute little farms” and grossly overspend on some fruits and vegetables
Prices and convenience. Especially with Walmart plus. Walmart has increased stocking of higher quality goods as well. Where I live the local farm stands/markets are comparable in prices but you are right, the markets have turned into a trendy destination catering to a higher earning clientele
No shit Sherlock. I’d rather spend my money there and save a hundred dollars a month than overspend on the strictly grocery chain stores in my area—the quality is more or less the same and the prices are higher.
Im pretty fortunate and consider myself someone that has a a decent amount of expendable income and even I stopped stocking my kitchen and pantry with extra stuff and tend to just shop for 2-3 days worth of meals at a time. Swapped back to making my own bread and yogurt with milk from cheap places like aldi and even vinegar with apple cores and skins etc. I plan on making the swap to bulk dried beans shortly when I can figure out how to cook them properly. I stopped buying chips and cookies and ice cream etc. I’ve rarely really spent any money on super processed frozen food and probably won’t ever again.
I also took up keeping chickens and filled just about every space I have with vigorously fruiting plants like blackberry and raspberry’s. Yes in pots and contained, and they were free plants from taking cuttings from people I know around the area.
I’ve stopped buying fresh herbs and have gone back to the basics of just simple spices and quick meals.
I am a medical professional and many patients that I interact with are skipping breakfast and snacks, I always ask about water and food intake. Would not dismiss this as GLP-1 induced, the people that I treat are certainly not on GLP-1
Intermittent fasting has health benefits. Skipping breakfast is the foundation of the most popular intermittent fasting approach: the 16:8 method. You fast for 16 hours overnight and eat all your calories within an 8-hour window (e.g., 12 PM to 8 PM).
MixtureSpecial8951 | 7 hours ago
I work in the industry for one of the major players. Our research and that of our customers (the largest retailers, producers, etc.) is showing that demand has collapsed >15% in the past ~5 years.
This is a longer term trend and the decline in consumption is almost entirely in low and middle income households.
Think about that for a moment: low and middle class folks are cutting back on food. Not just the past quarter or years. Over 5 years now. The decline is consistent and is ongoing.
For my company and what we do, it looks like the last quarter has finally stabilized from a financial perspective. We think. But, that has come on the back of shutting down a large number of sites, internal reorganization, slashing costs, and getting into bed with a PE firm. It is also coming on the back of smaller players closing shop.
Things are not good.
luxfilia | 7 hours ago
A lot of parents are also just not shopping like their parents did. There’s a whole subset of people who are never going to by Little Debbie’s, Doritos, lunch meat, American cheese, canned cinnamon rolls, etc., for health reasons and I really wonder how this affects grocery sales numbers. They make homemade desserts and bread, etc., choosing to indulge that way. Some of the things people are cutting back on are great things to cut back on.
hill-o | 5 hours ago
I don't know if it's only health, though. I think it's one thing to buy unhealthy products when they're also cheap (I feel like Little Debbie's used to be like a buck fifty a box or something?) but if you're weighing the cost of buying Little Debbie's or getting like... food for lunch, you're going to scrap the unnecessary food first, regardless of health level.
Salacious_Rhino | 4 hours ago
That's kind of what I'm wondering. I live in WA, and there's a lot of people like my wife and I that have completely changed their eating and health habits in comparison to our parents' and their parents' generations. The simple act of cutting out unnecessary junk food/snacks eliminates shopping in like 80% of most grocery store aisles like safeway, fred meyer, Walmart, etc.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
Correct, but that is a discussion around the relative health value of what is being consumed.
What I am talking about is the absolute volume of food being consumed in terms of what the industry is moving from producer to consumer.
AmishRooster | 5 hours ago
Do you guys attribute it to declining population? Or change in consumer habits?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Population 2029-2026 has increased an estimated 6.32%.
So, 15% decline in absolute volume across a 6.32% increase in population translates to a 20% decline in per capita consumption (by volume). Price is another discussion of course.
the-official-review | 4 hours ago
2018: all good guys! We’re making good money and everyone is happy!
2019: oh fuck we have to raise prices to slow people down from hoarding all the food
2020: hey investors! We’re making record profits and look at our stock price rise! Let’s hold these prices for a bit longer
2021: investors expect these kind of profits, we’re raising the prices.
2023: investors expect these kind of profits, we’re raising the prices.
2024: investors expect these kind of profits, we’re raising the prices.
2025: investors expect these kind of profits, we’re raising the prices.
2026: why aren’t people buying food?
Congratulations, your company along with thousands more have successfully fucked an entire population.
Final-Carry2090 | 4 hours ago
Frankly, I’d be embarrassed as a food company losing sales when population continues to increase.
JonnyAU | 5 hours ago
I get a whole turkey breast from costco, cut it into 3 pieces, slice one up on the mandolin, and freeze the other two for later. It's way cheaper than buying regular lunch meat (and maybe slightly healthier, idk).
cwcvader74 | 4 hours ago
Deli meats are loaded with salt and preservatives.
Impressive_Ad_5201 | 4 hours ago
So is regular packaged lunch meat.
BestDevilYouKnow | 4 hours ago
Past years I always came home with some sort of treats for fun - new cookies or candy, specialty chips to try out, bakery pastries, etc. I never buy that stuff anymore. If someone wants sweets, they have to go out and get it themselves. I don't do cost calculations, but I know my homemade cookies are a hell of a lot better than bakery stuff.
Organic_Ad_1930 | 3 hours ago
Pretty much this, but mostly because we can’t afford it otherwise. I don’t have $5 for a pack of Oreos. That’s a pound of chicken and a pack of rice
Rude_Mirror7441 | 2 hours ago
Maybe the companies will realize people are not willing to pay a lot of money on cancer causing chemical bs.
Mousehole_Cat | an hour ago
Exactly this. Our pantry and fridge looks completely different to my in laws.
I'd prefer to buy some grassfed organic beef and really enjoy my dinner than eat ultraprocessed snacks. I'll buy ingredients I can use across multiple meals or snacks, like plain whole Greek yogurt, frozen berries or a big thing of unseasoned nuts. I don't have a stock of condensed soup, or 3-5 cereal flavors, or even a thing of cookies.
303uru | 4 hours ago
We're a high income household and we really spend very little on groceries. Mostly plant based, very little prepackaged processed food. Turns out veggies, fruit, beans and rice are pretty cheap and healthy.
Southern_Roll_7035 | 7 hours ago
That's not what grocery retailers are reporting. If you look at identical sales comparisons for the big players (WalMart, Kroger, Albertsons, etc), they are growing close to the rate of inflation while margins have remained flat, so the Americans are buying about the same amount of groceries.
If you are talking Consumer Packaged Goods producers, then yes, many of them have seen significant declines; however, the fact that total grocery spend is flat indicates that consumers are shifting from packaged foods to other options, so they are not cutting back on food overall.
OPsDaddy | 7 hours ago
I wonder what effect the demographic shift (people not having children) is having on those pre packaged goods.
Southern_Roll_7035 | 7 hours ago
I think it is significant. Birth rates fell off a cliff after 2008 in particular, meaning we have less teenagers now, which is a prime age for snacking and convenience foods (if a household has kids with activities at different times, having frozen dinners allows each to each when he gets home).
dfsw | 6 hours ago
People born after 2008 arent teenagers now… ohhh fuck what have we done to the years?
BoldTaters | 7 hours ago
So.... The 2020 bread baking craze showed everyone that allowing someone else to package your food for convenience was not only more expensive but provides food that is less good? Over the past 5 years, people have been learning how to make more and more of their own food from more basic ingredients.
Does this track?
E: 2020 not 20/20. Stupid voice to text.
Lord_Montague | 6 hours ago
In 2020, we went down to one income for about 3 months during Covid lockdowns. We worked very hard to be more intentional about minimizing food waste and buying more essentials/basic ingredients that could be used for many meals. We saved so much money and had better food so we have just kept it up.
SomeCountryFriedBS | 6 hours ago
Only a year or so of Hello Fresh was basically cooking school for me.
BoldTaters | 6 hours ago
I can actually see that working. I'd guess that a lot of people just don't have the foundational knowledge/experience of cooking. A few years with a service like that teaches the basic skills and lets you see how ingredients become food. Once you see the patterns, you can begin to build your own meals. Neat insight.
SomeCountryFriedBS | 6 hours ago
>Neat insight
One their CRM team has clearly come to understand too well.
red__dragon | 2 hours ago
How do they understand and what have they changed as a result?
anewleaf1234 | 3 hours ago
They do give you a good start and also present a good framework to experiment such as adding some vinegar to your veggies or seasoning aggressively to bring out flavor.
SomeCountryFriedBS | 3 hours ago
And introducing you to other cultures' cuisines.
anewleaf1234 | 3 hours ago
Yes and no. I mean they give a good starting point but if you make their Asian meals some of them aren't exactly all that representative, but they might get you into an Asian Market where you can buy the real deal.
But they do teach some basic skills to those who don't know them and they introduce ideas of seasoning and adding acid to meals.
unurbane | 7 hours ago
This was the real story. Thx
Tiny-Pomegranate7662 | 7 hours ago
Thank you!!
AndyTheSane | 7 hours ago
There will also be increasing use of GLP-1 drugs directly impacting food consumption.
waldorflover69 | 7 hours ago
This is true. As expensive as GLP-1s are, they are still cheaper than a month of groceries. It’s cheaper to take drugs and not eat. Are we winning yet?
Thick_Ferret771 | 7 hours ago
Awh, the good ol cigarette diet of my youth…
drumgirlr | 6 hours ago
I remember those days too.
digital | 6 hours ago
Livin’ on Reds, Vitamin C, and cocaine. All a friend can say is ain’t it a shame?
bleachmartini | 5 hours ago
Truckin, up to buffalo...
particleman3 | 6 hours ago
So I'm on glp1s and it probably does save me the same that I would have spent on groceries each month. I think that just goes to show how much crap I was buying that I didn't need though.
Now the focus is on right sizing my habits so that I can try to maintain my weight without meds once I hit my goal.
remotethrowaway2 | 6 hours ago
Our grocery bill went from over $600 a month to around $300. I don’t buy junky snacks and sugary drinks any more, plus I eat less so I just have leftovers for multiple days instead of having to cook a new meal every night. Our alcohol bill has gone way down too.
biteableniles | 5 hours ago
I'm probably eating a sustained 500 to 1000 calories less daily now than I was at my starting weight. I'm easily saving between $100 and $200 a month on food and alcohol costs.
frisbeesloth | 4 hours ago
Back in the late 00's/early10's I literally watched friends openly admitting to turning to heroin because working 50 hours a week they could afford a roof or food, but not both. Telling me that being homeless was the worst thing they had ever gone through and they'd rather do heroin to not be hungry than to be homeless again. Heroin was so much cheaper than food and made them not feel hungry.
Nothing has changed but the drug of choice.
justadude27 | 5 hours ago
Are you under the assumption that people that eat the right amount or not enough food are on GLP1-s? Because that’s not what’s happening.
waldorflover69 | 3 hours ago
I do t know if you’ve heard of menopause but you can eat normally and healthily and gain weight. GLP-1s will nuke that. Just an fyi
justadude27 | 2 hours ago
So if someone is eating normally and healthy then they’d just be consuming less food? I’m confused about the point here.
waldorflover69 | an hour ago
You are obviously a man. In menopause your metabolism grinds to a fucking halt and you have to literally starve yourself to keep weight off and even then you often can’t. Ask any older woman in your life about the changes your body goes through. I dont understand the science completely but GLP-1s seem to get the juices flowing again
0w1 | 7 hours ago
We may not be healthy, and we may not have money, but dayum do we look good on that Ozempic!
/s
Surly_Cynic | 4 hours ago
I mean, I do the save money on food and then spend money on clothes for my new skinny body and on going out. I was lucky to be able to do it without any drugs, but I fully support the use of the drugs for folks that want or need to go that route.
My household is just me, an older single woman. I can get by buying almost no groceries. I’m pretty sure there are an increasing number of households like mine.
waldorflover69 | 3 hours ago
Do you not find it a bit dystopia that there are folks who are likely on these drugs because it’s cheaper than eating?
BikerJedi | 4 hours ago
Co-pay for my wife to take those meds for her diabetes is $445 a month for the first seven months of the year. So let's average that. 7 x 445 = $3115 a year, or $260 a month.
I just spent $275 on two weeks of groceries, so $550 a month on groceries. No chicken. No beef. No pork besides some sausage and spam. All store-brand stuff, no name brands.
So yeah, MUCH cheaper to buy some medications than eat.
wingsheng | 6 hours ago
Probably honestly
verenika_lasagna | 6 hours ago
Upcoming headlines: Thin people killed these 10 industries.
dreameater_baku | 7 hours ago
Agreed, I’d imagine the growing availability of GLP-1 drugs is another contributing factor. I know of 5 friends and colleagues who currently take Ozempic or some equivalent. Apparently 12% of American adults are now on GLP-1s.
Its_Pine | 7 hours ago
A couple of my coworkers are on GLP-1s and it’s honestly wild to see over time. They’re more fit and say they feel more energised, which is the opposite of what I expected. One coworker even mentioned she doesn’t feel the same afternoon slump that she used to, and thinks it might be from the weight loss.
So as much as I might joke about stuff like Ozempic, it does genuinely seem to be a great thing for people.
Hortjoob | 7 hours ago
So it actually helps keep blood sugar stabilized by preventing insulin surges (especially after meals), slows gastric emptying meaning your body works longer on foods digestion, and prevents the liver from delivering glucose derivatives into your bloodstream that keeps energy feeling even.
thedarkone47 | 6 hours ago
It takes 4 times as much energy to move a mass that's twice the weight. You get a lot of energy back simply by not having to move so much weight.
chrisbru | 7 hours ago
I’ve been on it for a bit now. Lost over 70 lbs.
Truly I feel better now at almost 40 than I did at 25.
Soft_Walrus_3605 | 2 hours ago
Great to hear. Congrats
vrendy42 | 6 hours ago
The afternoon slump is likely because she isn't snacking or eating junk food. If you have a lot of carbs or sugar for lunch, your blood sugar rises and then crashes, which can cause tiredness. Think soda, chips, muffins, cake, etc. All those foods you find in a typical work break room.
Also, don't confuse fit and lean/skinny. If they're not working out, they aren't any fitter than they were before.
Its_Pine | 6 hours ago
I don’t know all their habits but the colleague who specifically mentioned feeling more energised said she goes to the gym regularly. She has always been somewhat active, so I think this was just the extra bit needed.
upsidedown-funnel | 7 hours ago
That’s not a bad thing other than for food retailers wanting people to overeat. 12% of Americans are utilizing tools available to them to increase their quality of life. Good on them.
Live-Set-8576 | 7 hours ago
It seriously helps me prioritize healthy eating options and curbs impulse purchases at the store.
It's amazing what happened to my shopping habits once I wasn't struggling with food noise. I'm buying less junk and more produce.
7ddlysuns | 7 hours ago
They are genuinely amazing and yeah less food purchased. With food prices what they are for sure a savings
McBuck2 | 6 hours ago
I saw a story about that and they said a reduction of 6% in food buying was because of GLP-1 drugs reducing appetites.
texachusetts | 7 hours ago
That is a interesting point but I question how that reconciles with the low and middle income point of the parent comment. Also I don’t know the true scale of GLP-1 use for different socioeconomic categories. I have heard that higher end restaurants in LA are being hit by high GLP-1 usage.
remotethrowaway2 | 6 hours ago
Anecdotal but I know a lot of low income people on it. Most insurance plans cover it for diabetes or other weight-related conditions. I’m on it for purely weight loss and it’s only $25 a month on a pretty standard insurance plan. It’s just buying it without insurance that can be quite expensive.
csguydn | 6 hours ago
I'd love to know which insurances those are. In the past 2 years, I've had 3 insurance providers, and not one of them would cover it unless I was diabetic. I pay $454/month out of pocket for it right now, direct from Lily.
tjean5377 | 4 hours ago
I think that in the 2 years this will be down by half because Lilly has other things coming. I stockpiled cash buy Moujaro for the same price. 15mg vials but I maintain at 5mg so my cost per month is around $80. My insurance rejected it because I showed no evidence of diabetes...even though Im a diabetic.
csguydn | 4 hours ago
I just want the pill version for maintenance. The shots are getting old.
RegretLow5735 | 5 hours ago
Not having money for food has a much greater impact on food consumption.
NamelessCabbage | 4 hours ago
That's a good point we've observed that in the retail world as well when it comes to clothing.
PurpsMaSquirt | 4 hours ago
If low & middle incomes are cutting back on everyday groceries, I highly doubt they can afford GLP-1s. I’m not doubting the impact of them, but I imagine the impact of Ozempic is far less than the impact of lower income homes nationwide cutting back for years now.
Beautiful_Finger4566 | 2 hours ago
been using GLP-1 for some time now
I pay $200/mo, but I easily make that back because I stopped eating out so much... used to eat out 10-15 times per month at $20-$30 a pop, and now it's less than 4 times
and yes, I spend less on groceries too
Green_L3af | 7 hours ago
Could this also be related to reductions in snap benefits?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
Maybe, but prior to SNAP being cut the decline was already at 15%.
I am curious to know what the current data is showing. I know that for my particular company we seem to have stabilized, but I don’t know how the broader industry is at this moment.
SquirrellyBusiness | 5 hours ago
Yea this was my first thought, but this is long term enough it can't be just that. But with the recent big cuts to snap i bet it will get worse.
richrich07 | 7 hours ago
A few months after moving in, I built a large garden in my backyard and met a lot of people at Home Depot building or expanding their gardens. Fresh produce has gotten much more expensive and worse quality, so it’s nice to be able to go outside and pick my veggies and some berries.
LindeeHilltop | 7 hours ago
I planted fruits. Peach, pear, fig, loquat trees & berries. Next is grapes & crab apples. Remember our grandparents had food sources in their back yards. Heck, mine even made their own pickles!
missbwith2boys | 6 hours ago
I don’t buy pickles anymore. Haven’t for at least 15 years. Found a good recipe for dill pickles. I used to go to the farm store and buy a big bag of cukes, but now I grow them.
I generally can enough dill pickles for two years, and then the next year I’ll can enough bread and butter pickles for two years.
Pickle crisp and low temperature pasteurization makes crisp dill pickles.
LindeeHilltop | 5 hours ago
Where did you get your dill recipe. I already have my gran’s b&b one.
missbwith2boys | 5 hours ago
I think that answer depends on how comfy you are with canning. The source recipe is from The Oregonian, and current guidelines from r/canning seem to indicate that one garlic clove per pint is the maximum, and the original recipe calls for the equivalent of 2 per pint.
Anyway, I mash up the guidance at https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/ferment/recipes/dill-pickles/ (which discusses the low pasteurization method)
with the original recipe
https://recipes.oregonlive.com/recipes/damn-good-garlic-dills
(Recipe has directions for both refrigerated and canned processes)
CatCatchingABird | 2 hours ago
I'm growing a couple of pepper plants for the first time and I really want to can what I get. Unfortunately I just can't afford to buy the pressure canning stuff at the store, so I'm gonna just pickle them. Maybe turn some of it into a fermented hot sauce. I love peppers and go through them pretty fast, but hopefully next year I'll be able to get a canner so I can grow more stuff and maybe can and preserve more stuff.
richrich07 | 2 hours ago
I’ve lactofermented peppers with garlic and it turned out fantastic. I did 3.5% salt by weight (including water) and it didn’t even grow any kham yeast. After a few weeks blend up and store in a sterile jar in the fridge!
richrich07 | 6 hours ago
Every year I plant more and more. This year it was herbs and raspberries out back and pollinator friendly low water natives out front. I think grapes is next as well as some fruit trees out back.
LindeeHilltop | 5 hours ago
I started with herbs! Especially my fave, thyme. I have that one scatter around the house!
richrich07 | 4 hours ago
I just planted thyme! The last owners were big fans of rock gardens, so it’s a process to remove all that to free up more space for herbs. It’s slowly coming together!
LindeeHilltop | 4 hours ago
I use thyme more than any other. Parsley, cilantro and chives come in close behind.
CountessOfCheese | 6 hours ago
A few weeks ago I rang up a russet potato at the checkout, and it was almost $2. For something that used to be the cheapest reliable staple in my diet. Shit is crazy.
richrich07 | 6 hours ago
It’s crazy. Avocados are somehow cheaper.
I buy in bulk from Costco, so 5# is still relatively affordable but I have to store them right.
JonnyAU | 5 hours ago
And that's a good example because potatoes are one of the cheapest and easiest things for a beginning gardener to grow at home.
gimpwiz | 5 hours ago
Russets are like $4-5/10lb depending on where you get them. The price for individual potatoes is a lot higher.
threespruces68 | 5 hours ago
What on earth? Sold individually, russet potatoes are currently $.59 at my Kroger affiliate. A 5# bag (~15 potatoes) is $2.69 or $.18 per potato. Even Yukon Gold potatoes, which I prefer, are only $.39 per potato when purchased in a 5# bag. I buy potatoes all the time, and while they've definitely risen in price, I've never seen them at $2.00 each. That's insane!
CountessOfCheese | 3 hours ago
Yep, this was in a HCOL area at a normal grocery store, nothing too fancy. I guess it was a pretty huge potato as well, but still!
threespruces68 | 3 hours ago
Even for a large potato, that's an appalling price!
Meal planning and shopping within a budget definitely take more time now, but there are still bargains to be had. Kroger's, despite its reputation, has decent prices on staples. I feed two middle-aged adults a week's worth of meals for about $150. I'm sure others could do better, but that's a reasonable budget for me.
missbwith2boys | 5 hours ago
It’s summer so I’m swimming in summer squash. Neighbors stop by for free eggs and I load them up with squash too.
I do love squash- zucchini fritters, zucchini muffins, sautéed zucchini with carrots, etc. One of my favs currently is puff pastry with some red pesto, Gruyere cheese, and thinly sliced squash brushed with herbed olive oil. It’s a meal in itself.
We’ve been eating raspberries and loganberries from the backyard, and the blueberry bushes are just showing a hit of ripe fruit. Our yard isn’t big enough to have a ton of any of that, but it keeps us from buying a couple of pints of fruit a week during the berry season. If I want to make jam, I still need to buy a half flat of berries. It doesn’t help that our pups help themselves to what they can reach.
I couldn’t rely on my garden for all of my produce needs but I can offset a lot of cost, especially during the summer.
richrich07 | 5 hours ago
I wish I had more zukes. How many plants do you have?
missbwith2boys | 5 hours ago
Edited: oops, zukes vs cukes.
Anyway, I have two Goldini plants (yellow squash that is good for dehydrating as it doesn’t turn bitter when dried), two mexicana zuke (grey zuke), one green patty pan, one “orange” patty pan, two round zukes (that are giving me a few each day), and one more in my main garden that I can’t remember what it is and it hasn’t produced yet.
I also threw all my extra starts in one spot, and it seems to be a mix of straight neck yellow and crooked neck yellow. I do have one other yellow squash plant at the base of a tomato too.
So a ton. More than I need for 2 people, but like I said, I give a ton away.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
Food prices since 2019 are up ~33% overall. Dining out costs are up >50%.
It is wild.
Impressive_Ad_5201 | 4 hours ago
Spidermites have been eating all my tomato plants despite neem oil and diatanaceious earth put out once a week after it rains. Spraying the underside of the leaves, too. I will prob not get any tomatoes this year. Something already ate my bell pepper plants.
Soft_Walrus_3605 | 2 hours ago
Looks like we're headed back to Victory Gardens to ration food.
richrich07 | 2 hours ago
Honestly we should never have stopped. My parents gave up their garden when they moved to a bigger house and I remember picking raspberries so fondly as a child.
ap1618 | 7 hours ago
People in this sub told me the other day that people making $50K per annum can easily cut out $10-20K per annum to save. The suggestion to stabilize yourself and your family is to revert from general poverty to baseline extreme poverty. It’s amazing how economically illiterate people are in this sub when the data tells a completely different story.
Ok-Acanthisitta9247 | 2 hours ago
Might've been possible before Covid, but zero chance somebody making 50K/yr could pull that off today unless they're living with parents and have zero overhead expenditure.
Ada_Pearce | 7 hours ago
Average folks cutting back on food. Also, why does no one want to reproduce?
DL505 | 7 hours ago
Consumption down 15%?
Are a purely revenue basis?
I assume there is a ton of substitution that is taking place. IE: Less discretionary spending on items that are not "essential" (snacks and crap) and also purchasing non-brand name items, grnd beef instead of steak, etc etc
MixtureSpecial8951 | 6 hours ago
Volume industrywide is down >15%.
The number of pallets being utilized (stored/shipped) is down.
For us, it doesn’t matter if something is name brand or not. Moving/handling/storing/loading/etc. a pallet costs the same no matter the brand name on the product. If a consumer switches from eating name brand broccoli (for example) to eating private label broccoli there would be a 1:1 volume. But we aren’t seeing that. Instead, we are seeing 1:0.85.
When we look at the top line numbers it doesn’t look that bad. Grocery unit sales are down 1.8% in the past year but food prices are up 33% higher since 2019. Prices are way up, unit sales are down and population has grown.
So more people are buying less volume today than what fewer people were buying 6 years ago. And prices have outstripped everything which is why the overwhelming portion of the volume decline is from low & middle income consumers; they have less cushion to absorb price increases.
This is reflected in the rest of the economy as the top 10% of consumers are responsible for half of all consumer spending. It is that top sliver that is driving economic gains while the bottom 90% are reducing spend (the so called “k shaped” economy).
DL505 | 4 hours ago
Thanks for your feedback. Being a CPA I love this stuff ;)
MixtureSpecial8951 | 3 hours ago
I am in corporate accounting myself.
frawgster | 7 hours ago
Anecdotal: We have cut back on grocery spending. Not on food in general, but WHAT we buy has shifted in a way that reduces our expenses. We’ve shared our methods and logic with family and friends, and many have made similar adjustments.
80+% of our spending is on “perimeter products”…stuff outside the actual aisles. Produce, meats (usually stuff on sale), dairy…stuff like that. For us, a non-aisle grocery trip is a win. Even within the aisles, we stick to staples. Rice, beans, coffee, spices…stuff like that. We stopped deviating from our grocery list. No more browsing or randomly buying items. Get in, grab what we need, get out. We’ve stopped buying precooked food almost entirely.
We still spend more than we did in the past, but we’ve managed to keep expenses reasonable. A nice side-effect is that we cook way, way more. Cutting out aisle garbage also means that we can spend a bit more on higher quality fresh food.
JonnyAU | 5 hours ago
And you might as well cook all the time, cause the restaurant food is all terrible and the same now thanks to Sysco's monopoly.
Tiny-Pomegranate7662 | 7 hours ago
How do you cut back on food unless you are eating less calories or throwing away less? America is not populated with calories deprived individuals
the_real_orange_joe | 7 hours ago
The actual answer is that you shift away from products (Frito-lays got hit hard) and into staples.
Alternative-Bat-2462 | 7 hours ago
Yep, Dorito is having hard time too. No one is buying a tiny $5 bag of chips.
luxfilia | 7 hours ago
And a lot of moms avoid buying stuff with dye, like Dorito’s, for their children. Very different than the previous generation.
frongles23 | 7 hours ago
Good. Sell us food.
-Ch4s3- | 7 hours ago
Companies sell what people buy. No one is forcing anyone to eat chips. You can buy a liter of Sofa in France but no one there would ever drink it in one shot.
Freud-Network | 5 hours ago
>You can buy a liter of Sofa in France but no one there would ever drink it in one shot.
JD Vance would.
Edit: What a fragile little snowflake to block someone over a joke.
Geno0wl | 6 hours ago
yes but also no.
There is plenty of evidence that sugar addiction is real and not well understood/researched.
-Ch4s3- | 5 hours ago
> sugar addiction
Behavioral compulsion, which is how "sugar addiction" is properly classified does not function like drug addiction. There is no physical dependency, no withdrawals. So no it's not real in the sense that you mean. And again you see similar availability in many countries with large differences in consumption, and it seems clear that cultural factors dominate food consumption trends.
Geno0wl | 4 hours ago
That is still addiction. Unless you are saying People can't get porn, gambling, or weed addictions either.
Also, there is a physical component to sugar "addiction". The problem is, as I said previously, we don't exactly know what those physical components are or how strong they can be. And the research that is there is muddied by obviously bad faith research done by the Sugar Association(yes that is their real trade group name).
Also I didn't deny the cultural impact on use. That impacts even "established" drugs like alcohol, where binge drinking culture varies from place to place. Just because there are strong cultural aspects doesn't mean that is the only factor.
Purple-Inspector875 | 7 hours ago
It's like the entire US food industry set out on a decade long project to prove once and for all whether Giffen goods existed.
Good job, idiots.
Narflepluff | 7 hours ago
> The actual answer is that you shift away from products (Frito-lays got hit hard) and into staples.
I recently watched a decent analysis on McDonald's business cycle - they go oscillate between cheap / low margin and getting greedy for shareholders.
I think that this rings true for a lot of junk food products. At the end of the day, a bag of Doritos is a discretionary purchase. Chicken isn't. These companies jacked up prices way beyond inflation and consumers are noping out.
sirbissel | 5 hours ago
Jacked up prices -and- cut back on the size of the product.
Daily-Lizard | 4 hours ago
Could you share a link to the analysis or keywords you used to find it? I’m interested in watching it too!
eukomos | 3 hours ago
Chicken is less discretionary, but still somewhat so. Vegetarianism can be totally healthy.
Icy-Elk3698 | 7 hours ago
The demand at local food banks has increased drastically since covid.
Fluffy-Rope-8719 | 7 hours ago
It's been (anecdotally) alluded to throughout these comments: people are probably buying less name brand and processed foods (chips, soda, pre-baked bread, etc) and instead are likely buying more raw ingredients and making whatever they want.
I know personally if my family wants bread for the week, I either go to a local bakery to splurge for the good stuff (similar price to the local grocery store's bakery now) or we just make bread at home.
I know everyone is pointing to this being a bad economic thing, and it is, but hell maybe this will inadvertently help us kick our ~40% obesity rate
MakeMoneyNotWar | 7 hours ago
People buy lower quality meat, like hot dogs or spam, or go for cheaper meats like chicken or pork instead of beef. People buy more store brands rather than name brands. People shop at cheaper stores like Aldi.
richrich07 | 7 hours ago
Spam is unfortunately a delicacy nowadays
VELOCIRAPTOR_ANUS | 7 hours ago
Eh, the ozempic boom is absolutely affecting calorie intake across the country
upsidedown-funnel | 7 hours ago
And that’s not a bad thing.
VELOCIRAPTOR_ANUS | 7 hours ago
Agree!
waldorflover69 | 7 hours ago
Because it’s cheaper to take drugs than eat!
eukomos | 2 hours ago
You think people are taking GLP drugs primarily in order to save money?
waldorflover69 | an hour ago
I definitely know some people who are not tapering down their dosage for this reason.
Bcider | 3 hours ago
That's a dumb take. It's also cheaper to be healthier. Something like 50% of the US population eats way more than they should.
waldorflover69 | an hour ago
The cost of produce and staples must not be skyrocketing where you are. It’s cheaper to be healthy but it’s even cheaper to just barely eat at all.
I do agree that a lot of the US eats unhealthily and is fat but we are approaching a dystopian scenario where having a balanced diet is quickly becoming out of reach for many Americans
Radical_Coyote | 7 hours ago
Not an expert but a first guess might be being stricter about food waste. Americans historically waste about half of the food we buy. But if you don’t have more money for groceries, you’re a lot more likely to reheat those leftovers instead of letting them go bad, more likely to scold your children to finish their plate before running off, more likely to eat those last few bites instead of throwing them down the garbage disposal, etc.
richrich07 | 7 hours ago
Younger people yes, but my father is extremely wasteful still.
WordWithinTheWord | 7 hours ago
We stopped buying ice cream for example
LeatherRebel5150 | 7 hours ago
and even most of what you would think is ice cream, isn’t actually ice cream any more its like a “dairy desert” or some other clever wording because ice cream has a specific definition that they don’t meet anymore in order to cut costs
luxfilia | 7 hours ago
Yep! I’d rather spend money of Haagen Dazs or make homemade ice cream than spend money on the inferior stuff.
terryducks | 4 hours ago
I switched to a "premium" ice cream and instead of 8-12 oz ... down to 4-6 oz a serving.
Cost wise, it's a wash but I'm consuming less.
Remote-Two-9065 | 7 hours ago
I’m quite simply eating less calories bc that’s what I can afford.
genobeam | 7 hours ago
People are eating less calories
Mal_Adjusted | 7 hours ago
Shift to private label and buying more products on sale or in club stores. Buying less pre packaged food and more ingredients. You pay a lot for convenience with those. Skip the organic stuff.
A while back when Walmarts ceo was saying the consumer was exhibiting “stressed behavior” this is what he meant since they see all this in their scanner data.
Aloysiusakamud | 3 hours ago
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/27/nx-s1-5836441/food-insecurity-economy-new-york-fed
gard3nwitch | 7 hours ago
It's probably not eating less so much as buying cheaper stuff. Store brand instead of name brand, fewer snacks and prepared meals, etc.
Dcammy42 | 7 hours ago
GLP-1s
Ok-Acanthisitta9247 | 2 hours ago
I buy exactly what I need for the week; enough food to make 21 square meals, and some snacks. I account that I'll probably eat out lunch at work once, and grab a dinner over the weekend. I've cut out name brands entirely, generic is perfectly fine, and probably healthier.
TheTwistedTabby | 6 hours ago
How much of that research has seen the shift from packaged to raw goods? My n=1 is that i shifted my spending in the past years to forcing extra time spent at home preparing foods and meals because the packaged prepared foods stopped competing on the cost vs time spent aspect.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
Man, I would live to dive into that. We handle both sorts of things. What the mix is and how it has changed would be cool to know.
Remote-Two-9065 | 7 hours ago
Grocery stores will do anything but lower prices huh?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 7 hours ago
I am not in grocery industry, but in the distribution/storage space.
Googling it, the grocery store profit margin averages between 1.6%-2.5%. I know that my company, and others in our space, also have low-mid single digit margins (based on earnings calls and what not).
It is odd, to me, that an industry that we cannot live without is priced as though it is optional. Meanwhile, optional things, stuff (like the phone I am tapping on) I would probably have a better life without, the margins are insane. We will die without efficient, reliable and safe food production & distribution. It is a massive logistics ecosystem and is valued like it isn’t important at all.
But here we are.
Geno0wl | 6 hours ago
Food is a highly highy competitive marketplace. Both "externally"(Kroger vs Walmart vs Trader Joe's etc), and "internally"(Pepsi vs coke, Eteman's vs Little Debbie). Market theory says more competition means lower margins(which is why Kroger is trying to buy up everything).
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
That competition should drive down prices, but since 2019 prices have increased 33%.
What I am talking about is the volumes moving through the system. The industry throughput has declined in absolute terms >15%. Factoring in population growth, the per capita consumption in terms of volume decline is a little over 20% less today than in 2019.
Geno0wl | 5 hours ago
Some of the price increases are due to world economic issues. Some are just plain greed combined with collusion and illegal deals(like Walmart working with Coke to guarantee their price is lower than independent grocery chains).
If the US had a government that actually gave even half a shit about its citizens, the DOJ would figure out which is which and hold people accountable.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Yup. Price is a whole other thing.
Input costs are increasing as fuel, electricity, fertilizer and labor costs have skyrocketed. Some are “self owns,” such as the impact that fighting Iran has had on fuel prices as well as the impact of deporting much for the harvest/meat processing labor force. Others are more external, such as Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine.
A mess.
Hulk_Hogans_Toupee | 5 hours ago
Yeah back when I worked at a local grocer (that has since gone out of business), the store operator told me that they basically break even on all of the food in the aisles (chips, sodas, cans, etc.)
He said the profit makers were bakery/deli, produce, meat dept, and floral.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
And alcohol.
20+ years ago when I was working in restaurants, alcohol and desserts were where we made profit.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 6 hours ago
Grocery margins are notoriously low, it’s not like they have som magic wand where they can just lower the cost of groceries.
CatLord8 | 7 hours ago
Oh good. Private equity groceries.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
Right? What is weird is the margins in the grocery business are razor thin. In my industry they are larger but we are not talking double digits.
It doesn’t seem particularly ripe for PE investment. At least to me.
JonnyAU | 5 hours ago
Right? It's terrifying. And they're slowly infiltrating everything in our lives, food, housing, healthcare, even our college football. All human activity will be subordinated to these vultures and we have zero say in it.
Mail_Order_Lutefisk | 7 hours ago
The major players will be gutted as Boomers die off and demand for legacy brand ultra processed foods plummets. Claiming demand drop of that scale on food is a lie management has bought into to excuse poor performance. I was BSing with the dude who manages the Indian grocery store by my house a couple weeks ago and he said they’re going through site acquisition for two more stores so I guess the demand side depends on who you ask. And if you go to the Latin or Asian grocers now probably over half the customers are white. I’d much rather own a piece of Goya or Mirch Masala than Campbell’s or Frito Lay right now.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
That may happen over time, but since 2019 the US population has increased 6.3%. So, if the amount of food we consumed had stayed the same we should have seen an increase in volume shipped through the distribution eco system.
But, even as population has increased, the absolute volume has decreased. Adjusting for per capita figures, the volume/amount of food being consumed has declined 20% since 2019. We are also spending significantly more on a per unit basis, 33%, than we did the.
You spoke with a single store owner and his experience. That is a mini-micro anecdote. I am working with the macro numbers the industry is tracking. On a personal level the guy is doing well, expanding his particular business. Great. But on a macro level, the absolute collective volumes moving through the system are declining as prices and population increase.
Mail_Order_Lutefisk | 2 hours ago
I disagree. The gutting of major American industrial food is happening now. While I don’t doubt that price increases have materially impaired sales, I suspect that there is also a massive blind spot in data aggregation because it’s reliant on companies like Kroger, Wal Mart or Publix that have state of the art POS systems that give real time SKU data. Those guys will all insist the food business is dying.
The majority of growth in US population since 2019 is from immigration. There are immigrant focused markets akin to Aldi (small footprint, low SKU count) popping up at breakneck speed all over the country. They operate in a parallel economy where a lot of them handle a chunk of their own logistics. They don’t run POS systems. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell they are getting picked up properly by these data aggregators. But everyone needs a story to pitch to their boss and ultimately the shareholders. The fact of the matter is if you lose a few million Boomers a year and replace them with people from Venezuela or India you ain’t gonna sell as many Ritz crackers and there is a structural change afoot for old line American food brands that is far more complex than just “prices went up so people are eating less.”
If you’re the first person in your company willing to pull your head out of the sand and go observe these businesses you might become chairman or CEO if you figure out how to skate where the puck is going. There’s always a bull market somewhere.
Anyway, I’m sure your job is a royal pain in the butt trying to handle volume slippage in a critical industry and I shudder to think about what volume losses are doing to your marginal costs. The world is held up by folks like you fighting these utterly impossible battles that few people comprehend and I’ll bet you get little appreciation at work, so as a consumer who understands how difficult your task must be I sincerely thank you for helping hold up your piece of the industrial economy that helps feed us. Seriously thank you!
grumpygenealogist | 3 hours ago
What leads you to believe that it's boomers eating all the ultra processed foods? I would venture to say that most of us grew up eating home cooked meals and didn't develop a taste for junk food. Eating out was also a rare treat when we were kids. I've never set foot in a McDonalds.
Woodit | 5 hours ago
Do you see what segments people are cutting back on? Every time these threads come up the top comments (like ITT) are talking about chips and soda. Curious if it’s the snack segment taking the biggest hit
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Unfortunately, I do not know the specific mix.
Our business is biased to things that need some sort of temperature control. So, anything needing refrigeration or freezing. There is a lot of processed foods (icecream, frozen veggies, etc) in there but also a lot of fresh stuff. We also work between farmers and manufacturers and the data I have seen is that the throughout of the fundamental ingredients has also declined.
Wheat production for 2026 is forecasted to be 25% below 2019. Soy production has increased; this so being driven in part because soy uses less water and fertilizer. We are currently experiencing significant fraught and extremely high fertilizer costs. Same when compared to corn; sounds a cheaper thing to farm.
Farmers are struggling like crazy right now. Input costs are sky high, the prices farmers can get are low, and the impact of environmental factors (heat/draught) are reducing yields.
Just wild.
StaticReversal | 4 hours ago
They are. Look up Smuckers’ 2023 purchase of Hostess Brands and the revenue black hole that has been for them. They’ve had to take on $3B in impairment charges since their $5.6B purchase.
Woodit | 3 hours ago
Odd acquisition to make
Exact-Kale3070 | 7 hours ago
this thread is what brings me back to reddit despite my aversion to "social media." so many details from people who are living the life and can contribute facts. thank you for yours and thanks to the people below. MEGA INSIGHT.
Diabetesh | 6 hours ago
So grocers throw away a lot of food. Has there been a shift in more expensive stuff getting thrown away because people either can't afford it or choose to buy cheaper alternatives? What is the tipping point that they stop stocking certain items because they throw away more than they sell?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
That I do not know. We are not in the end consumer side of things. We are strictly the logistics and distribution piece.
Diabetesh | 5 hours ago
So has the amount of expensive stuff you distributed gone down in that same span of time? If you don't know that is fine, but the consumer purchases is directly connected to the wholesale side. If consumers aren't buying X product as much, the amount of orders to the wholesale side decline as well.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
That is a good question. We are not a wholesaler; we are strictly logistics/distribution.
The final price the consumer pays has a bunch of inputs, one of which is what we charge to move/store/etc. product. But what we charge to do that is not connected to the value of the item itself. It has more to do with how much something weighs, what its dimensions are and what sort of environmental controls are required.
In addition to absolute volumes decreasing (putting downward pressure on rates) the industry is also reeling from a dramatic increase in industry capacity of 15%. So, 15% more capacity so chasing 15% lower demand. That has led to enormous pressure to lower rates industrywide. That has actually led to our part of the final price actually shrinking.
Horangi1987 | 4 hours ago
As you well know I’m sure, since you’re in the movement operations, your indirect contribution to price is the logistics costs.
Obviously vendors usually avoid telling you info like how they exactly incorporate cost of logistics into their final margin, but it’s almost guaranteed that they do. Consumers don’t think about those costs being part of the equation.
Yes, I’m sure to an extent ooga booga big corporations greedy is true. But in reality, costs are up in every part of the supply chain and there’s no denying it.
(I’m a logistics major, former freight broker, USDA food program transportation coordinator and now demand planner for retailer in a non food industry, so I understand your insights deeply and appreciate that you’re giving them to us)
_THEWATERB0Y_ | 5 hours ago
Half of Americans are clinically obese. I consider it a good thing if we are starting to cut back on food purchases.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Interestingly, 40-43% of American adults are clinically obese.
For comparison:
EU: 17%
UK: 30%
China: 16% (was at 3.1% in 2004)
Australia: 33%
Canada: 33%
Eating less would help, living less sedentary lifestyles would be better. Combining fewer calories, more everyday (“incidental”) activity with better nutrition (in other words, less ultra processed food) would be best.
MountainTwo3845 | 5 hours ago
My local HEB is pulling a lot, and I mean a lot, of higher end foodstuffs. It's extremely noticable. Much less variety.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Yup. That is an effort to control prices.
What I work with is volume. A pallet/ton of Lays chips (for example) costs, weighs, and is otherwise identical to store brand potato chips. The cost to move them is the same. The price we charge is the same between the two.
The volume data is showing a dramatic decline in consumption, almost all of it in lower-middle income households. Adjusting for inflation growth, that absolute >15% decline in volume translates to a per capita reduction of 20%. The overwhelming majority fit that decline is in the low & middle.
High income households are consuming similarly to before.
AnticPosition | 5 hours ago
Have they considered raising prices again? That might help.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Interestingly enough, my industry cannot increase price. We are also dealing with an increase in industry capacity while volume declined.
So more capacity chasing lower volume = lower prices we can charge. Add increased costs such as fuel and electricity, margins have been dramatically compressed industrywide.
AnticPosition | 4 hours ago
Interesting. I assumed you were involved in grocery store management or something, and I was taking a shot at them.
Or a big food producer.
casualcorey | 4 hours ago
decline in demand for junk food maybe. have any details on the research regarding discernment between the two?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Our industry works primarily with stuff that needs refrigeration and storage.
The sort of shelf stable “junk” food isn’t a big part of our business. Though we, and everyone else, is desperately trying to capture that side of things too. Firstly it would mean that available warehouse space could be utilized and not vacant (thus generating revenue) and the costs associated with dry storage are dramatically lower.
Less cooling demand translates to less HVAC infrastructure CapEx, less maintenance, less energy demand, less insulation and mitigation efforts to prevent thermal spillage. And, as I noted above, it also translates to utilizing previously vacant sites. Those sites either have to be divested, often at a loss as a direct result of increased capacity driven by PE backed “wildcatters” and reduced demand, or they have to continue to be maintained. That maintenance means electricity, cooling units still have to be turned on (they have a tendency to break when left off), taxes have to be paid, employees have to be employed even at a reduced headcount. And, that underutilized capacity is a drag on financials which further translates into higher borrowing costs.
harbison215 | 4 hours ago
You guys do realize that price increases, inflation is persistent and ongoing, right? And that’s why demand is falling?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 3 hours ago
Exactly.
Demand in absolute measures has declined over 15%, concentrated overwhelmingly in lower to middle income households. Demand also started collapsing prior to the inflation of the past few years.
Meanwhile, inputs (fuel, fertilizer, labor) costs have increased. Add to that environmental impacts have put enormous pressure on crop yields.
The per capita reduction in volume demand is 20%. I l ow that list of the demand decrease is focused on the low and middle groups; I would live to see how those two groups have seen their per capita consumption change; it has to be much greater than 20%.
jameson1234 | 4 hours ago
GLP1s are a massive contributor to that and a good thing. People aren’t over eating and are being healthier/less drag in healthcare system.
anewleaf1234 | 3 hours ago
You mean all the posts the claim that it is easy to get rich in America and people are far better off than they look are all bullshit.
You don't say.
goldtophero | 2 hours ago
You must not work for Costco. Your major industry player is probably running your business in a way that benefits the stakeholders (your PE firm, and C-suite), rather than the customers. There are definite systemic problems that I'm sure you're seeing in your research but the greed/inequality that has captured this economy I think is the real story. And not all companies are burning up their customer good will to boost profits.
Half_Cent | 2 hours ago
Did they ever think about paying their employees more?
Smooth_Rocket_ | an hour ago
No shit, things doubled under covid because of "supply chain issue" and then never came down after those "issues" disappeared and everything still has continued to rise over the last 5 years.
Inside-Specialist-55 | an hour ago
I run a small business and I'm down 33% this year compared to last. I've tried to scale up a bit to get more sales volume but there's only so much you can do to get customer to purchase an item. It doesn't help that USPS just increased the rates for lightweight packages so now the average cost to ship a package with tracking with the cheapest USPS option is $6 even if the item is one ounce.
GreyBoyTigger | 4 hours ago
I’m firmly middle class and have no debts besides a mortgage. I refuse to go out to eat and my grocery store shopping habits have been pared down a lot. I don’t believe for a second that these price increases are just inflation. It’s complete and utter greed and I’m happy to see the lot of these businesses fail. Fuck the government for failing its citizens but absolutely fuck every company hiding behind “inflation”
Narflepluff | 7 hours ago
> Think about that for a moment: low and middle class folks are cutting back on food. Not just the past quarter or years. Over 5 years now.
It's a good thing that the most obese demographic in the United States is eating less.
Remote-Two-9065 | 7 hours ago
Oh go fuck yourself with a nailed bat
Fun_Apartment536 | 7 hours ago
Just throwing this out there. My wife and I got on GLP-1 and literally cut our grocery shopping in half.
Not saying enough people are on GLP-1s to create a national level dent just saying I believe if people are eating as much as they should they would buy half the food
Alternative-Bat-2462 | 7 hours ago
This may not relate to the lower middle class part. But GLP1s play a role too. People with the disposable income who take these drugs suppress their appetites and then its still the novelty food being cut as they lose the taste for it.
Butane9000 | 7 hours ago
How much of that is junk food and less healthy food?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
I don’t have a breakdown of the mix of less/more healthy.
I just did some bak of the napkin math, on a per capita basis, the amount of food Americans are consuming 2019 vs now is down >20%. Those are just volume numbers based on the number of pallets the food logistics industry is moving.
Industry volume decreased >15% in absolute terms while population increased 6.32%. So, adjusting for those figures we get a per capita reduction of just over 20% in outright volume (the amount we are eating).
Butane9000 | 5 hours ago
We'll you have to factor in the immigration enforcement actions in both voluntary returns, involuntary deportations. You also have to factor in changes to food stamps work requirements which subsidize some food categories as millions dropped off for stamps once work requirements were instituted. Other comments have mentioned the trust of GLP-1 and weight loss drugs resulting in less calories being eaten.
It's anecdotal but I've personally cut back quite a bit on the consumption side myself. I rarely buy snacks anymore and mostly resort to meal prep.
MixtureSpecial8951 | 4 hours ago
Those sorts of things affect the cost of production and the end price.
I am dealing entirely with volume and treating it as a metric for measuring the amount of food people are putting into their mouths regardless of price.
The impact of GLPs is interesting. Users cut “bad” food purchases and increase “healthy” food purchases while simultaneously reducing overall caloric intake by 16-40% (a huge range btw but that is all I could find).
Meanwhile, only 11% of Americans are on GLPs. Of that population, 44% fall into the upper income bracket. That upper income population is mot the cohort that is driving the reduction in volumes. So, we can safely conclude that the impact of GLPs is not a significant driver in the overall industry volume at a macro level.
mct137 | 7 hours ago
Adding to the discussion here; is there data on “what” foods? Like has consumption gone down as a whole but in fact we are buying less and less fruit roll ups and Cocoa Puffs and but maintaining normal levels of fruit/veggies and meat dairy? Basically asking are people cutting back spending on what I’d term “low nutritional value/high cost” foods?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
I don’t have data on the relative mix of products, just the volume.
I will say that we deal primarily in the temperature control business. So things that need to be cooled/frozen have seen steep declines.
Jesus_on_a_biscuit | 4 hours ago
Sorry, but I love that for your industry. I hope it collapses another 15-20%. I'm so thrilled to shift as many $ as possible away from industry food to local food and our family thinks is an honor to do away with processed shit now. The industry got way too greedy.
threespruces68 | 7 hours ago
In addition to the many excellent reasons outlined in other comments, I think a contributing factor might also be changing demographics. Fewer families with children and a growing percentage of older people is shifting demand. Kids eat a lot, and older people do not. Fewer kids and more older people would make a noticeable difference in purchase patterns.
jbourne0129 | 5 hours ago
there are also a LOT of childless couples who end up doing meal service plans especially if both are working full time. either pre-made or ingredients delivered to make yourself. people just dont have the time or energy to cook as much as they used to
personally, my wife and i dont have the time or energy to meal plan, shop, and cook weekly. and too much food ended up getting wasted anyway, i hated it. so we buy pre-prepped meals that are fresh and delivered weekly.
i used to argue "its more expensive than grocery shopping but still cheaper than takeout"....and now im not even so sure about that, it may be cheaper than groceries now.
threespruces68 | 5 hours ago
My husband and I used a meal service plan for about a year, and I eventually canceled because I found it much more expensive than going to the grocery store myself. Also, I found the meals boring and repetitive. That being said, I am an extremely conscientious meal planner and shopper, so that changes the dynamic. On the other hand, my adult daughter uses the same service and saves money because it keeps them from eating out.
jbourne0129 | 5 hours ago
if my wife and i didnt do a meal service, we'd just end up ordering out all the time. im also not sure how well these plans scale with more than 2 people. the more people you are cooking for the more sense i think grocery shopping makes. but again....the time it takes is the real barrier for me
threespruces68 | 5 hours ago
Two people is definitely the sweet spot, but I still find shopping myself to be more economical. When I was using the meal service during a challenging year, we were spending $185 for 20 meals a week (5 dinners and 5 lunches for two), which doesn't seem so bad, but that covered only the weekdays and it didn't include breakfasts, so I still had to go to the grocery and was spending quite a bit more than that when all was said and done. I now spend about $150/week on groceries in one trip per week, cooking all meals at home, so I'm saving significant money on food by doing it myself. However, you're not wrong that it does take time and energy that many people do not want to spend on preparing meals.
Edit: On a positive note, that meal service permanently reset my perspective on portion sizes, which I desperately needed after becoming an empty nester, so there was a benefit to the experiment. I learned how much food is enough for two people, which changed my shopping habits and reduced our household waste.
Beytran70 | 5 hours ago
The trick for meal plans is to make multiple accounts and always use a "please come back" deal.
saera-targaryen | 5 hours ago
This is how my husband and I justify buying the fancy expensive frozen foods. Like sure, is it probably cheaper to either make lasagna or get the cheapest frozen lasagna than the nice one that's twice the price? Yeah, but if my options at home are "make a lasagna from scratch" or "shitty lasagna," I'm just going to grab a pickup order from a restaurant. So, I'm grabbing the fancy whole foods lasagna because I will actually eat it.
CraigdarrochFerguson | 7 hours ago
This is one glaring issue of the current economic policy displayed in inelastic goods like groceries. No matter how rich you are, you’re only buying one carton of eggs/gallon of milk/loaf of bread a week.
123-Moondance | 6 hours ago
THEY DID IT TO THEMSELVES! They raised prices more than they needed to be raised to rape the customer and now complain when the customer sees them as rapists. F them. Costco, farmers markets, and a local independent grocery in my area are all I need. The rest can go down the drain for all I care.
Agile-Reception | 5 hours ago
Yup. We almost exclusively shop at Costco now. 4 chicken breasts at my local grocery were $22... I got 3x that for a few bucks more at Costco.
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | 8 hours ago
Grocery stores are keeping the lid on prices, offering promotions and discounts to entice shoppers.
CPI declined 0.4% from May to June. Many are quick to attribute it to price of oil and gasoline declining. Food inflation may also have been slightly negative.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 7 hours ago
>CPI declined 0.4% from May to June. Many are quick to attribute it to price of oil and gasoline declining. Food inflation may also have been slightly negative.
We don’t need to guess. I don’t know why people do this, just put wild guesses on here as if it’s informational, when the data is right here.
Energy as a broad sector was down 5.7%, being the primary driving force behind a negative CPI print. That’s not “many are quick to attribute”, it’s the data.
Both food away from home and food at home increased 0.2% month over month, which still shows decent price pressure there.
Lestranger-1982 | 5 hours ago
Yeah the data is immense and super clear, we don’t need to guess
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | 4 hours ago
No guess work needed. Data straight from yesterday's PPI report:
Wholesale food prices fell 0.6%, with the cost of fresh fruits and melons declining 2.2%. Fresh and dried vegetable prices dropped 6.0%, while the cost of grains plunged 12.0%. There were also decreases in the prices of eggs, oil seeds, beef, pork and poultry.
https://www.reuters.com/business/us-producer-prices-unexpectedly-fall-june-2026-07-15/
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 4 hours ago
Why link to a news article? The PPI report is right here: https://www.bls.gov/web/ppi/ppi_dr.pdf
Also, this is PPI, which isn’t CPI. This is not measuring the price of foods in grocery stores, the CPI report does that. This is measuring various stages of production chains.
None of those decreases in PPI have made it to actual grocery prices, as you can see in the CPI report.
Your earlier comment implied you were guessing, but now it just seems like you’re confused about the reports you’re looking at.
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | 2 hours ago
You are correct, it was PPI. Lower prices paid by wholesalers should lead to lower retail prices which means food at home will likely decrease month over month when next CPI is released.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 2 hours ago
“Might” is the word you’re looking for, not “should”. Wholesale, especially in grocery, is often volatile and not directly reflective of pricing on the shelves. There’s a smoothing effect here that matters a lot, not to mention how overhead and other factors impact final pricing that’s not included in intermediate steps.
ATXFC_Bro | 7 hours ago
Something not mentioned in the comments is that 1 in 8 Americans are on a GLP 1 today and are consuming less calories.
I also realize most grocery retailers continue to increase pack sizes which has some impact on total units.
Of course there are some products whose price has become prohibitively expensive ex Beef, but I don’t think that’s the whole story really.
accountingbossman | 3 hours ago
100% this. Same way cigarette companies saw reduced sales but cranked prices on remaining users in the 80s/90s to keep profits up.
Junk food/soda manufacturers saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and began changing their businesses, their price increases on legacy junk food are part of their strategy as demand drops.
Kershiser22 | 2 hours ago
> Same way cigarette companies saw reduced sales but cranked prices on remaining users in the 80s/90s to keep profits up.
Did the companies increase the prices, or was it mainly tax increases?
jameson1234 | 4 hours ago
This. Pretty amazing that’s just ignored because it’s the #1 reason sales are down. Fat people are eating less and getting healthier. That’s a good thing.
jbourne0129 | 5 hours ago
also how many households rely on food delivery services instead of groceries ?? like blue apron, hello fresh, cook unity, and dozens of others.
the only grocery shopping i do is for Milk, yogurt, and oats. the rest of our meals are delivered pre-made. we dont have time to cook...
accountingbossman | 3 hours ago
Premade delivery services have virtually no impact on grocery sales. It’s a small niche that you have surrounded yourself with and think it bigger than jt actually is
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | 8 hours ago
Wholesale food prices fell 0.6%, with the cost of fresh fruits and melons declining 2.2%. Fresh and dried vegetable prices dropped 6.0%, while the cost of grains plunged 12.0%. There were also decreases in the prices of eggs, oil seeds, beef, pork and poultry.
susanrez | 7 hours ago
Fell from when?
spacethreadtheneedle | 7 hours ago
Yeah falling 12% from a 200% markup is still an insane increase in price.
eukomos | 7 hours ago
Than a year ago, which it says in the second sentence of the article. You know there’s a link you can click in the post, right?
MixtureSpecial8951 | 5 hours ago
I looked it up. Folks on GLPs spend 5.6% less on groceries within 6 months. Those folks also significantly cut down on snacks/ultra processed foods but also increase their spending on fresh/minimally processed foods. But it nets out to a 5.6% reduction in grocery spending (think dollars) and another 6% decline in dollars spent eating out.
Meanwhile, our portion of the food industry (logistics/storage/distribution) has seen a decline in volume of >15% in the past ~5 years. Meanwhile, the populations has grown over 6%.
So more people are consuming less in absolute terms vs 5 years ago. Adjusted for the upward population growth,ends that individual Americans are cutting volume of over 15%. Unfortunately, I do not have the raw data for industry pallet volumes, but the downward change is >15% 2019-2026, but we can do some quick math to kinda wrap our heads around it.
US Pop
2019 328.2M
2026 349M (6.32% growth)
Let’s assume that each person consumed 10 pallets in 2019, and now are consuming 8.5 pallets (reflecting the 15% decline in volume). Meanwhile, prices have increased 33% (dining out has increased 50% btw).
Now, for the sake of comparison, let’s assume consumption stayed the same: in 2019 the US would have consumed 3.28B pallets and had consumption stayed the same we would now be consuming 3.49B which reflects that 6.32% population growth.
But, we aren’t seeing that. Instead, absolute volumes have declined >15%. So instead of 3.49B pallets, Americans are actually consuming 2.89B. On a per capita basis, the average volume of food consumed has declined to just under 8. This is just over 20% decline in the amount - not the dollars spent - of food people are consuming.
In the meantime, food prices have increased an average of ~33%. So even as we are eating dramatically less food in outright terms, we are spending more.
rowdymowdy | 4 hours ago
I know this isn't the point ,but they thought all their products were absolutely necessary so they could jack up the prices and we would just pay them the price they demand .not true at all
Thadius | 3 hours ago
I think the prices are a large factor, but I also think that a lot of people are becoming educated because of the prices, so are investigating what they are eating, at first it was because the prices were going up and up, but then they realised that the portions were going down and down (shrinkflation) so they started looking at competitors and other like products which made them start looking at labels, there they noticed ingredients and how much crap was actually in their foods and they started to take note of this and started looking for things with a shorter ingredient list, hey if prices were already sky high they might as well be choosey.
They started seeing this subject on social media, apps that actually tell the tale on all these food additives. People, because of the costs, have eventually started to desire real food again, and since roadside veggies are cheaper, and farmers markets often have a better deal, and they see what real food is, they kind of don't want the mass produced shit anymore.
BaltRavensFan20 | 5 hours ago
I mean, when you can make and learn to make everything you can buy that’s prepackaged at the store, at your house, and it be 10x healthier and better for you, of course people are going to stop buying the junk. We’ve bought a bread maker and learned to make our own bread that is 10x better tasting than the processed bread you buy at the store…
BackupSlides | 5 hours ago
Realizing that this is an Econ forum not an investing forum, but interesting to see this article and thread juxtaposed with the fact that VDC is up 2% today…curious as to why this data does not seem to be scaring the market.
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | 5 hours ago
If you kept your ears close to the ground, you would have already caught on to this trend as much as a year ago. Bain finally published the data/analysis this week for June 2026. Assuming traders are keeping their ears close to the ground, this data should come as no surprise. They probably already reacted a long time ago. Maybe the low that VDC hit in early November 2025 was a result of traders reacting to the early trend of slowdown in consumer staples?
BackupSlides | 2 hours ago
Makes sense to me! Reports and research do absolutely tend to lag the underlying data, and the market doesn’t exactly wait around for peer / leadership / editorial review haha.
I suppose another explanation could simply be that there is sufficient desire to rotate out of tech and into traditionally defensive sectors that it still dominates perceived softness in those sectors (that is to say, grocery being down a bit is still less scary than a potential AI crash).
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | 2 hours ago
Rotation into defensive areas of the stock market probably is also supporting VDC price.
I only wish that our nation's "elite economists" (there are also a few of them in the Federal Reserve) kept their ears close to the ground to at least some degree rather than wait for published data, survey results etc. If they did that, they would not be behind the curve, be it raising rates or cutting rates.
PrelateFenix87 | 5 hours ago
I live in a more rural state. People in general have started buying locally, paying higher than even the store places. I wonder if this is widespread and has an effect on volume prices being bumped up. Particularly, beef eggs veggies bread and honey. Seems to be a thing everywhere. Literally farmers market downtown every weekend, plus local meat shops etc within 20 min any direction of town.
-Hoptacular | 4 hours ago
I'm in a larger city and the farmers markets have been more packed as of late also. I for one want real food and not this overly processed crap.
BishlovesSquish | 6 hours ago
If prices are falling, this is a long time coming. They need to fall a heck of a lot in order to get even close to back where they were. No one can afford meat anymore. It’s ridiculous.
Ch1ckenOfTheSea | 3 hours ago
Such an easy solution. Just skip your avocado toast. Duh! We're all fucked. And it's just getting worse and worse out there. When you're shopping around for freaking meat, that's a problem.
redheadedandbold | 3 hours ago
Safeway prices are now literally outrageous. But, they've been using that "buy 4 @ $2.75" trick for several years. Notice it's almost never on healthy food. It's on anything with sugar/fake sugar, or over-processed corn or wheat. 4 oranges for $1.00? Butternut squash at $.50/lb? Not going to see that!
threespruces68 | 2 hours ago
Best deal at my King Soopers, a Kroger affiliate, right now: $1.99 per lb. pork shoulder roast. I have a 7# roast in my freezer right now for making pulled pork. After it's braised, it will yield 14 servings, which I will portion and store in the freezer, where it will keep for several months. Meat for a dollar a serving? That's a steal! Note to self: need to make more room in my freezer.
turb0_encapsulator | 3 hours ago
They are starving us and they have made uncooked food unsafe to eat. America is rapidly devolving into third world status. And apparently some people are okay with this.
ohyerhere | 2 hours ago
Personally I am shopping at farm stands more. I live close to beef, pork and poultry farms, eggs/milk/cheese are covered. We also have a garden. I'd say I use the grocery more for grain staples, and household goods.
OrganizationInside14 | 2 hours ago
Corporations shocked that people cut back after these same corporations start price gouging under the cover of inflation at even the hint of yet another crisis.
wildbill88 | 7 hours ago
People are finally learning "moderation" through trumps shit policies and glp1s. Everyone going to the farms and getting fresh produce now, just 5 or so some odd years ago people were making fun of "hipsters" for doing just that. Or adding "friction" to their lives.
Discounts won't be the way to go....more food companies will make things smaller to fit their margins. Instead of the 12oz Coke here's the 6oz coke, and on and on.
LindeeHilltop | 6 hours ago
When I can eat a candy bar in one gulp, I won’t buy it.
Consistent_Point_853 | 3 hours ago
This sub will find a way to hand waive this and claim times are better than ever in history and this is totally normal market behavior in a perfectly oiled economy such as ours.
pigvwu | 3 hours ago
>Grocery unit sales fell 1.8%
Meanwhile, inflation adjusted restaurant sales are up 1.3%.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/persistent-cost-increases-and-enduring-demand-will-shape-the-restaurant-industry-in-2026-302685661.html
So, combined with the explosion in dieting drugs, seems like basically an expected result. The OP article seems to focus on price as a cause, but maybe increased prices are more of a response to broader trends.
uncleputts | 3 hours ago
Grocery companies will have to settle for regular profits instead of record breaking profits. Those oligarchs can save money by not going to Starbucks, buttered toast, and raping children from your church instead of paying for Epstein access.
grahag | 2 hours ago
A healthy free market would dictate that they reduce prices to increase demand...
We haven't seen that for a while though. Now it's all market manipulation and cartel pricing.
vertigo3pc | 2 hours ago
Also worth noting: this article is based on observations from 2019, the overall inflation cycle, and price increases overall. This does not address the looming cliff we're facing in the lack of petrochemicals (fertilizers), and the increased cost of oil which impacts transportation, last mile transit, packaging, etc.
Of course, Americans don't care until it gets bad; until then they'll just keep blaming minorities and immigrants.
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | 2 hours ago
Too much fertilizer use causes salt accumulation, nutrient imbalances, and root damage. Instead of yielding more, overfed plants prioritize rapid leaf growth over fruit/grain development. This also degrades the soil's natural microbiome and makes crops more vulnerable to drought and disease. Lack of fertilizers, if the shortage lasts for a short period, may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
vertigo3pc | 2 hours ago
And what about too little fertilizer? What are the health benefits of people starving due to food insecurity and absence?
Please, explain to farmers how this may be a blessing in disguise, while they're bankrupted from tariffs and now seeing lower yields due to no fertilizers in the 2nd round window weeks ago?
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | an hour ago
If there was an absence/shortage of food, we would not see disinflation in the food category. Grocery prices increased only 0.2% MoM from May to June.
Mythic-Rare | an hour ago
Follow up article:
"Eating has become a luxury, along with having children, housing, clean drinking water, and inhabiting a living, breathing body"
What a future we've been given
Stuckin207 | 7 hours ago
Medium to high income earner in a MCOL area here. We abandoned shopping all together at chain grocery stores. We get staples from Walmart/meats from butcher box/and produce from farm stands.
LeatherRebel5150 | 7 hours ago
Is that for prices or for some other reason? Farm stands around here are more money than grocery stores because they basically cater to city people who drive out here to see the “cute little farms” and grossly overspend on some fruits and vegetables
Stuckin207 | 6 hours ago
Prices and convenience. Especially with Walmart plus. Walmart has increased stocking of higher quality goods as well. Where I live the local farm stands/markets are comparable in prices but you are right, the markets have turned into a trendy destination catering to a higher earning clientele
upsidedown-funnel | 7 hours ago
Newsflash, Walmart is a chain store, and one of the shittiest ones to support.
Stuckin207 | 6 hours ago
No shit Sherlock. I’d rather spend my money there and save a hundred dollars a month than overspend on the strictly grocery chain stores in my area—the quality is more or less the same and the prices are higher.
HelpfulTooth1 | 2 hours ago
Im pretty fortunate and consider myself someone that has a a decent amount of expendable income and even I stopped stocking my kitchen and pantry with extra stuff and tend to just shop for 2-3 days worth of meals at a time. Swapped back to making my own bread and yogurt with milk from cheap places like aldi and even vinegar with apple cores and skins etc. I plan on making the swap to bulk dried beans shortly when I can figure out how to cook them properly. I stopped buying chips and cookies and ice cream etc. I’ve rarely really spent any money on super processed frozen food and probably won’t ever again.
I also took up keeping chickens and filled just about every space I have with vigorously fruiting plants like blackberry and raspberry’s. Yes in pots and contained, and they were free plants from taking cuttings from people I know around the area.
I’ve stopped buying fresh herbs and have gone back to the basics of just simple spices and quick meals.
Don’t buy unless it necessary.
n0madking | 2 hours ago
I am a medical professional and many patients that I interact with are skipping breakfast and snacks, I always ask about water and food intake. Would not dismiss this as GLP-1 induced, the people that I treat are certainly not on GLP-1
[OP] BathroomMaximum1721 | an hour ago
Intermittent fasting has health benefits. Skipping breakfast is the foundation of the most popular intermittent fasting approach: the 16:8 method. You fast for 16 hours overnight and eat all your calories within an 8-hour window (e.g., 12 PM to 8 PM).