A new report suggests that food price inflation is leveling off. Gary Crawford has more.

PARTICIPANTS: Gary Crawford. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. USDA economist, Megan Sweitzer.

Transcript

I'm fairly confident that we're headed in the right direction.

The right direction.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's reaction the other day after looking at the latest Consumer Food Price Index report, which showed another month of zero grocery store food price inflation.

USDA economist Megan Schweitzer told us.

So this month in particular, we saw food at home prices were flat over the month.

And in fact, food at home prices have been flat for three out of the four most recent months.

And Ag Secretary Vilsack told reporters that compared to prices a year ago.

The grocery store cost of food is now at an inflation rate of a little over 1 percent, which is well below, well below the 20-year average for the inflation rate for food purchased from the grocery store.

On average, food prices generally go up each year by about 2.5 percent.

During the height of COVID, the inflation rate was as high as 11.5 percent.

But since then, and especially this year, we've seen prices for groceries in particular, really level off with some foods dropping in price, some others going up.

In fact, during June of the 15 food categories that Megan tracks.

In June, prices rose for seven categories, declined for six categories, and stayed the same for two categories.

So really, that was what was leading to our no change overall, was sort of that balance between those categories declining and rising.

On the list of price declines during June.

Prices fell the most for fresh fruits.

Prices were down by 2.6 percent in June.

And so this is at least partially a seasonal factor, where prices fall when fresh fruits come into season domestically.

Fresh vegetables as well, we've seen declining prices for four months straight.

Overall, price declines month by month have taken prices for some foods down below what they were a year ago at this time.

Prices for fish and seafood are 1 percent lower than they were a year ago.

Prices for fresh fruits are 1.7 percent lower than they were a year ago.

Fresh vegetables are down by 0.3 percent.

And dairy products are down just a smidge by 0.1 percent.

On the flip side, several products are selling for higher prices than this time a year ago, such as fats and oils that includes butter.

Those fats and oil products are 4 percent higher.

Beef is over 5 percent higher.

And eggs are still costing 10 percent more than they did this time last year.

Gary Crawford reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.