Apples are up 7.5 percent from a year ago and butter is down 10.3 percent, according to the September consumer price index. The two items sit at opposite ends of a grocery bill that barely moved overall.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that food at home rose 1.8 percent over the 12 months ending in September, while the monthly change was a seasonally adjusted drop of 0.1 percent. Under that flat headline, some shelves got pricier and others got cheaper.
The September grocery picture
The consumer price index tracks the prices of a fixed basket of goods, with each item weighted by its share of household spending, as Wikipedia explains in its overview of the index. In the bureau’s September 2026 release, the food at home index stood at 321.758, up from 321.500 in August. The index for food away from home rose 0.2 percent in the month and 3.5 percent over the year. Prices for all items rose 3.7 percent.
That gap matters at the checkout. Groceries rose 1.8 percent while restaurant menus rose 3.5 percent, so cooking at home is rising at about half the pace of eating out. Budget ideas for stretching the difference are collected in 10 clever frugal living tips. The Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, in an October update that incorporated the September data, forecast food at home up 2.3 percent in 2026 and food away from home up 3.5 percent, with all food up 2.8 percent.
Good Morning America summarized the monthly report in a look at the grocery items rising and falling fastest. It noted that the 1.8 percent grocery gain is well below the overall inflation rate. Readers curious about the bigger picture can also see 12 things that are actually getting cheaper.
Items getting pricier
Several staples are above last year’s levels, and the bureau’s tables put numbers on each of them over the 12 months ending in September.
- Apples: up 7.5 percent.
- Tomatoes: up 6.8 percent. Good Morning America tied the increase to weather damage in Mexico and a tariff on Mexican tomatoes.
- Fish and seafood: up 6.9 percent.
- Coffee: up 7.1 percent. The program’s coverage linked the rise to drought-related shortages.
- Uncooked ground beef: up 5.4 percent, even though it slipped 0.8 percent from August to September.
- Fresh fruits: up 4.9 percent, and fresh vegetables up 2.8 percent.
- Milk: up 2.3 percent.
Beef and veal as a broader group rose 3.5 percent over the year, the bureau’s table shows. Month to month, the picture was mixed: unadjusted, apples slipped 1.4 percent from August to September and eggs rose 1.0 percent, a reminder that a yearly figure and a monthly figure can point in different directions. Households that buy fresh produce for holiday meals are seeing the effect first, and a guide to 5 costly Thanksgiving hosting mistakes covers the planning side. For more on how shoppers handle the checkout bill, see 15 foods to never buy at Walmart and the handwritten grocery list and the traits it is linked to.
Items getting cheaper
The falling side of the list is led by two items that bakers watch closely.
- Eggs: down 20.6 percent, the largest decline on the list. Good Morning America attributed the drop to supply recovering from a bird flu shortage. A look at the 3-digit number on an egg carton explains how to read the pack date.
- Butter: down 10.3 percent, and down 2.6 percent from August on an unadjusted basis.
- Cheese and related products: down 3.0 percent.
- Ice cream and related products: down 2.4 percent.
- Bacon and related products: down 3.3 percent.
One note on dairy: Good Morning America described milk as down more than 2 percent, but the bureau’s table shows milk up 2.3 percent over the year, so milk is listed above with the increases. Cheese and ice cream are the dairy items that fell by more than 2 percent.
What the swings mean for the holiday table
For a cook planning Thanksgiving baking, the combination of cheaper butter and eggs and pricier apples is a mixed result. A pie with an apple filling and a butter crust sees the two effects pull in opposite directions. The eggs and butter price drops make baking-heavy menus a little easier to budget, though apples cost more than last year.
Looking ahead, the Economic Research Service’s October update projects food at home rising 1.0 percent in 2027 and food away from home rising 2.8 percent, with all food up 1.7 percent. The agency’s ranges for those 2027 forecasts are wide, so the figures are a rough guide rather than a promise about what any one item will cost next year.
Why prices behave this way
Good Morning America reported that earlier in the year, higher diesel costs from an oil shock tied to the Iran war raised grocery prices along the supply chain. The program said the pass-through to consumers has eased for some products, though diesel prices remain high, and that perishable goods such as produce and some meats are the most sensitive to those costs.
The Economic Research Service’s Food Price Outlook page lists its CPI and PPI forecast files as last updated Oct. 23, 2026, with the next update scheduled for Nov. 24.
The takeaway from September is that a flat grocery index hides large movements underneath. Eggs and butter have fallen, apples, tomatoes, coffee and seafood have climbed, and a shopper’s own bill depends on which of those items fill the cart.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Shixart1985 – CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons
