California shoppers see surging grocery inflation once again

It has not been a pretty summer for consumers at California’s supermarkets. That’s what my trusty spreadsheet found when averaging slices of Consumer Price Indexes for three Golden State metro areas: the Los Angeles/Orange County combo, San Francisco and San Diego. This summer’s pricing – June through August’s reports – shows that prices in the “food at home” category across those three metros grew at an average 3.3% annual rate this summer. So, grocery inflation more than doubled from 1.5% in 2024. Yes, food at home inflation is nowhere near the pandemic era’s inflation surge that saw grocery prices balloon...