Tariffs, bird flu and severe weather are pushing some everyday groceries to record prices

If you’ve been to the store lately, the price of some goods may look a little different. From bananas and oranges to chicken, a handful of everyday grocery items are at or less than a cent away from record prices.

The most noticeable of these? Ground beef. Now more than $6.60 a pound, the cost of ground beef is soaring to all-time highs, jumping another 30 cents month-over-month, according to the latest data from the consumer price index.

But before you start budgeting, most consumer prices showed very minimal changes. The cost of eggs and bread are down, and nationally, gas is only a cent more than it was the previous month.

Across the board, inflation accelerated in August, rising 0.4%. Compared with a year ago, consumer prices are about 2.9% higher, an increase economists largely attribute to sweeping tariffs levied by President Donald Trump.

The Tribune is tracking 11 everyday costs for Americans — eggs, milk, bread, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, chicken, ground beef, gasoline, electricity and natural gas — and how they are changing, or not, under the second Trump administration. This tracker is updated monthly using CPI data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

To see the average U.S. price of a specific good, click on the dropdown arrow below and select the item you wish to view.

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Eggs

In the wake of all-time highs set in the winter and spring, egg prices have dropped significantly in recent months. This downward trend continued in August, though the price appeared to settle somewhat, dropping just 1 cent month-over-month. According to the latest data, the average cost of a dozen large Grade A eggs is $3.59 nationwide.

The sharp decline in egg prices is likely due to a decrease in bird flu cases in commercial and backyard flocks since the start of the year. In the first two months of 2025, tens of millions of birds were affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza across 39 states, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

While notably fewer than the winter and spring months, cases are rising again. The number of affected flocks doubled from July to August, with the virus detected in more than 56,000 birds in three states. Less than halfway through September, newly confirmed cases have shot up roughly 150%.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins has already hinted at a “a potentially challenging fall,” and virologists anticipate cases will continue to rise with the change of seasons, as migrating wild birds spread the virus to new environs. If that comes to pass, shoppers could expect another spike in egg prices.

Currently, the cost of eggs is about 13.5% less than it was in December 2024 — the month before Trump took office.

Milk

The cost of milk, meanwhile, has gone up for the third month straight.

There are a number of factors that could be driving this gradual price increase. Like egg-laying hens and poultry flocks, dairy cows have been affected by bird flu. Though the number of cases has fallen sharply throughout the summer, shoppers could be seeing the lingering effects of that disruption on the supply chain. Additionally, rising costs may be a result of lower domestic milk production and fewer dairy products being imported into the country in recent months, according to Tribune analysis of USDA data.

A gallon of fresh, fortified whole milk cost $4.17 in August. That price is 7 cents higher than it was when President Joe Biden left the White House and up 3% from a year ago.

Bread

The average price of white bread fell again last month, landing at $1.84 per pound to mark a nearly three-year low.

Bananas

Shoppers can expect to pay more for their next bunch of bananas.

The staple fruit cost a record-breaking $0.67 per pound in August — just a fraction more than the previous high set last month.

Inflated prices are likely a byproduct of the president’s trade war, with tariffs imposed on the country’s top banana suppliers. Imports from Guatemala and Honduras are levied at 10%, while Ecuador and Costa Rica’s tariff rates are set at 15% and Mexico is subject to a 25% tax.

Already, bananas cost over 8% more than they did at the start of the year.

Oranges

At $1.80, the average price per pound for navel oranges is just a cent shy of its high.

In January, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service forecast that domestic orange production would fall to its lowest level in almost 90 years due to unfavorable weather and crop disease — particularly in Florida. As a result, the United States is importing more of the fruit, but tariffs on orange growers could be helping to push costs skyward.

According to Tribune analysis of USDA trade data, the U.S. imports more fresh oranges from Morocco and South Africa than the rest of the world combined; and the import taxes for these two African countries are set at 10% and 30%, respectively.

Currently, prices are 15% greater than they were at the start of the Trump administration.

Still, there are other benign explanations for raised prices that are not tied to economic policy. Like many citrus fruits, the cost of oranges is heavily tied to the harvesting season. As we exit orange season, supplies will decrease, coinciding with an increase in demand, thus triggering higher prices. This is typical for the fruit market, with oranges cheapest in the winter months, then increasing in cost throughout the late spring and summer and eventually peaking in September or October each year.

Tomatoes

The cost of tomatoes is also climbing up, up and up.

In August, the average price spiked by 13 cents, with a pound of field-grown tomatoes now setting you back about $1.93. That’s roughly a 7% increase since Trump took power.

These changes, however, are largely tied to the harvesting season. As with oranges, tomato prices vary depending on the time of year, rising through the late summer and fall, peaking in the early winter months and then plummeting in the spring.

But outside the standard seasonality in the tomato market, tariffs could be at play here as well. In July, the Trump administration announced it was placing a 17% import tax on most Mexican-grown tomatoes, which make up the vast majority of all tomatoes sold in the U.S.

Chicken

The average cost of fresh, whole chicken remained at $2.08 per pound in August, falling ever slightly from June’s peak.

So why the elevated prices? It could be a result of rising feed costs, the lingering effects of bird flu on the supply chain or that more measurable increases in beef prices are driving a shift in consumer demand toward cheaper meat options like chicken.

Though near record highs, there’s been relatively little fluctuation in the price compared with other goods. In the last two years, the average cost of chicken has been hovering somewhere around the $2.00 mark — never moving more than 10 cents in either direction.

Ground Beef

Peak summer grilling season may be behind us, but the cost of ground beef is still trending up.

Jumping 4.5% from July, August saw the seventh consecutive month of record prices, with a pound of 100% ground beef chuck costing $6.63.

The rising cost can be attributed to a confluence of factors. The U.S. cattle inventory is the lowest it’s been in almost 75 years, and severe drought in parts of the country has further reduced the feed supply, per the USDA.

Supply challenges and rising feed costs stateside mean the country is importing more. But beef and cattle sourced from other nations isn’t necessarily a cheaper alternative. New tariff rates on top beef importers like Canada and Brazil took effect in August, raising the countries’ already steep import taxes to 35% and 50%, respectively. Plus, in July the U.S. suspended all live cattle imports from Mexico due to concerns over a flesh-eating parasite, further straining the supply of beef and cattle.

Since the change of administrations, ground beef costs have ballooned nearly 19% — translating to $1-plus price tags increases at the grocery store.

Electricity

At exactly 19 cents per kilowatt-hour, the price of electricity is back at all-time highs.

Month-over-month changes in electric costs typically register at less than a cent, but that doesn’t mean consumers won’t feel it in their pocketbooks. Prices have been steadily rising throughout the year, and in fact, August marked the seventh month this year that the national average was at a record high.

As for Chicago, ComEd, the city’s primary electric utility, announced earlier this year that a massive supply rate increase would hit this summer, warning that the cost for an average residential customer was expected to go up by $10.60 per month. For some Chicagoans, that supply increase translated to triple-digit hikes on their recent bills.

Since December, the average price per kilowatt-hour has climbed almost 8%.

Gasoline

A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline cost $3.30 in August, a small increase from the previous month.

Prices in Chicago tell a different story. Now $3.48, the cost of gas in the city dropped month-over-month but still hovers around 18 cents above the national average, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Nationally, gasoline prices are up about 5% during Trump’s presidency.

Natural Gas

The nationwide cost of piped utility gas, or natural gas, fell for a second month, dropping another cent to $1.63 per therm.

Yet, on average, Americans are paying over 7% more to heat their homes, ovens and stovetops than they were in the final month of the Biden administration. Year-over-year, that difference is even more drastic: roughly a 17% change.

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