July CPI put groceries at 2.7%. The spread between individual items was 38 points
The July CPI release came out on the 12th and the grocery line was 2.7% year over year, which is the calmest it has been in a while. I went into the item-level tables expecting the components to be clustered around that and they are not close.
Twelve month changes, unadjusted:
- Eggs: -25.7%
- Butter: -8.1%
- Cheese: -4.2%
- Bacon: -2.8%
- Chicken: -2.7%
- Bananas: +0.6%
- Potatoes: +3.4%
- Milk: +5.1%
- Lettuce: +7.5%
- Ground beef: +9.0%
- Coffee: +10.3%
- Apples: +11.1%
- Tomatoes: +12.8%
Eggs to tomatoes is a 38.5 point spread inside a number reported as 2.7%.
The part that got me is one level down. Dairy as a category came in at -0.5%, which reads as nothing happened. Inside it milk is +5.1% and cheese is -4.2%. Two staples in the same aisle, nine points apart, netting out to zero.
So a household buying eggs, chicken and cheese genuinely had grocery deflation this year. One buying coffee, beef and produce is somewhere near 10%. Both read the same headline.
Not making a point about whether the number is accurate. It is. It just describes a national basket, and I do not think most people realize how far their own basket can sit from it.
Source is the BLS CPI release for July 2026.
