Grocery prices by metro area

Second correction, October 2026: marketplace figures for April–August 2026. On 2 October we said that 153 of our published marketplace (delivery-platform) figures for April through August 2026 included prices from nearly 200 stores that belonged to other retailers but were recorded in our data as Target stores. We recomputed each of them without those stores, and restated a figure only where the recomputation reproduced both the published figure and the sample behind it. Most could not be reproduced: the store and product records behind the index are updated continuously, and we did not keep a fixed copy of them as they stood when each month was published, so we withdrew them. This test was applied to the figures affected by the misattribution. It is not a statement that our other published figures have been re-verified; most were built from the same continuously changing records and would not reproduce exactly either. Of the 153, 145 are withdrawn, 6 are restated and 2 were recomputed with no change. Every national marketplace figure for April–August 2026 is withdrawn. We also withdrew 8 San Diego marketplace figures that were not themselves affected, because their index and month-over-month change were calculated from San Diego figures this correction withdraws. The marketplace series resumes from September 2026; the methodology says what those figures claim and what they do not. The shelf-price (headline) index is not affected. Every change is listed in the corrections log.

Correction, October 2026. Some July and August 2026 marketplace figures in the GroceryChop Price Index were wrong. A defect in how we matched online-store listings to physical stores recorded prices from other retailers under the wrong store chain — for example, a regional chain’s own-brand products appeared as if they were sold at Target. We removed those prices and recomputed the affected figures. Several were materially too low: the San Francisco July marketplace basket, for example, was understated by about 29%. We have restated 47 August marketplace figures, withdrawn 83 July marketplace figures that cannot be recomputed exactly under the July method, and withdrawn 15 figures that no longer meet our publication minimums. The shelf-price (headline) index is not affected — none of its inputs came from the misattributed stores. Every change is listed in the corrections log. How we correct the index.