The U.S. grocery slowdown is becoming harder to ignore.
Shoppers are buying fewer items than a year ago, and grocery sales are declining as weakening unit sales are now outweighing rising prices. That is according to new analysis from Bain & Company using NielsenIQ grocery data shared exclusively with CNBC.
Grocery units, which refer to individual items or products sold, fell 1.8% in June from a year earlier, a sharp reversal from the 0.1% year-over-year growth recorded in June 2025. While prices continue to rise about 2% to 3% year-over-year, that inflation cushion for the industry is no longer enough to keep overall sales growing.
I was in Acme a few days ago looking through the steak section. There was a porterhouse close to expiration on sale for … $54 fucking dollars. It was a little over one pound. I’d be astonished to pay that much for a steak at a fucking steakhouse, cooked and brought to my table with sides and drinks.
If I want the taste of steak these days, I buy bottom round and flatten the shit out of it with a tenderizing mallet.
My husband wanted a special German stew this week and I went to price out chuck roast for it and it was $10/lb! It would cost us $20 in meat to make a pot of simple freakin stew. Round wasn’t even cheaper either! I quickly decided we weren’t having that stew right now. The price of beef is insane. Beef roast and stew was the poor meal when I was growing up - the thing my parents made to stretch the budget because you just buy a super cheap cut and cook it all day to make it edible, along with cheap veggies. Now those meals are damn near a delicacy considering the cost of the meat. Chicken isn’t much better either at the moment. Grocery shopping has become exhausting.
My local Shop-Rite still has cheap-ass chicken, at least. They’ve always had these packs of chicken (breast, legs or thighs) of about 6 or 7 pounds that cost $10 total. Thank god I like hot dogs, too – stores still damn near give those away.