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.
Shoppers are buying fewer items than a year ago, and grocery sales are declining as weakening unit sales are now outweighing rising prices.
You maximize profit by raising prices until the units sold fall to the point where prices * units falls below the peak. The peak is where profit is maximized. It seems they’ve reached it. For the next little while they’ll keep on cutting costs to grow profits. Recipe reformulations with fewer and cheaper ingredients, cheaper substitutions, more soy and water in the sausages, and other general quality reductions.
Food is famously a luxury good so it makes sense people would pull back in order to spend their money on necessities like bombs to drop on foreign elementary schools and shit
That’s OK, they’ll just raise prices more to make up for the falling consumption! /s
Remember, the only two nations to vote against food – FOOD being a human right at the UN a few years ago were… the USA and Israel.
Probably doesn’t help that some of the food can give you weeks long explosive diarrhea.
Would someone please think of the companies!?
In Canada we are spending like 120% of our income on groceries and it isnt just the inflation but the compounding shrinkflation with climate crisis causing inclement weather that means crop insecurity…
It aint looking good and at this point companies are going to have to realize they cant profit if nobody has any money to spend
These grocery stores have been locking up a lot of items as well further shooting themselves in the foot because they refuse to look long term.
