July 2026

Eating the cost: food prices and the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted food supply through labor shortages and logistical challenges, contributing to higher prices for consumers. This article examines Consumer Price Index (CPI) trends for food at home from January 2019 to December 2023, focusing on the six major food groups of the CPI. While most major food groups experienced similar patterns of price increases during the pandemic, the meats, poultry, fish, and eggs group and the fresh fruits and vegetables group exhibited different price movements.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial, lasting impact on price trends for food at home caused by disruptions in food supply, including labor shortages and logistical challenges to transportation. These limitations often resulted in price increases for the average consumer, as seen through changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

This article focuses on the CPI’s six major food groups: cereal and bakery products; meats, poultry, fish, and eggs; fruits and vegetables; nonalcoholic beverages; dairy products; and other food at home. Other food at home includes a wide variety of items including sugar, candy, cooking oils, peanut butter, dressings, soups, seasonings, frozen foods, condiments, baby food, and other prepared foods. Examining the CPI price trends of all six major food groups provides the framework to examine how prices changed from January 2019 to December 2023. Then, we’ll look at the meats, poultry, fish, and eggs index and the fruits and vegetables index, highlighting selected components—meats, poultry, eggs, and fresh fruits—which have exhibited unique price movements.

Price trends of the CPI’s six major food groups in food at home

Chart 1 illustrates that four of the six major food groups of the CPI showed similar price changes: an initial increase during the onset of the pandemic (early 2020), a leveling off for the remainder of 2020 and into 2021, then steep price increases in late 2021 through 2022. Supply shortages, shipping bottlenecks, and logistical challenges all contributed to these price increases. The CPI indexes for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs and for fruits and vegetables show that prices in these food groups behaved differently than the other food groups over this period.

Chart 2 shows the December 12-month percent changes for each of the six major food groups in the CPI. Meats, poultry, fish, and eggs showed a large 12.6-percent increase in December 2021, while most other major food groups showed increases of only around 5 percent, except for dairy products, which had a 1.8-percent increase. December 2022 exhibited much larger increases for most major food groups—the largest occurring in cereal and bakery products and dairy products, with 16.1-percent and 15.4-percent increases, respectively. 

The exceptions in 2022 were meats, poultry, fish, and eggs, which increased 7.6 percent, and fruits and vegetables, which increased 8.5 percent—both lower than the other major food groups. December 2023 had 12-month percent changes more in line with prepandemic levels, between -1.3 percent and 2.7 percent for all the major food groups.    

Prices spike for meats and poultry, 2019–23

Meats, poultry, fish, and eggs had larger price spikes than the other five major food groups during the onset of the pandemic in 2020, as the spread of COVID-19 caused worker shortages and processing plant closures. Prices for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs continued to increase during 2021 because of new operating costs facing meatpackers and poultry plants, such as providing personal protective equipment (PPE) to employees and adding protective shields to factories. Labor shortages persisted due to sickness, and transportation constraints—a shortage of truck drivers—became worse after the onset of the pandemic. Feed prices and demand for labor increased, and plants had to pay higher wages to attract and hire new employees.¹ (See chart 3.)

In spring 2022, the Russia-Ukraine war increased fertilizer prices by disrupting global supply chains, decreasing key exports used in fertilizers (such as ammonia and potash) and reducing natural gas flows to fertilizer plants. Combined with drought conditions across the western United States, these factors contributed to higher feed prices.²

Higher feed prices often result in lower beef prices in the short term, as it becomes cheaper for ranchers to cull their herds than to feed them. In 2022, drought conditions and high feed prices increased beef slaughter because farmers had to liquidate larger portions of their herds and send them to feedlots earlier than they would normally. This temporarily increased beef supply, which stabilized beef prices in 2022.³ Meanwhile, poultry prices saw steep increases in 2022 due to the avian flu outbreak—the worst since 2015. Over 7 million meat-producing turkeys were lost to the flu in 2022.⁴

Egg prices see steep increase in 2022

Egg prices saw an initial spike during the onset of the pandemic in 2020 but remained fairly level through 2021. (See chart 4.) Then, in February 2022, the first wave of the avian flu infected millions of birds throughout the United States; a second wave followed in September. This was the worst outbreak of the avian flu since 2015 and the main contributor to steep price increases throughout 2022. The outbreak affected nearly 60 million egg-laying birds, and tens of millions more had to be killed to prevent further spread of the virus, leading to widespread egg supply shortages. 

The index decline during the first half of 2023 indicates egg prices returning to more typical levels following the outbreak as egg supply recovered.⁵ 

Prices for fresh fruits and vegetables increased at lower rate

Fresh fruits and vegetables showed different trends from the other major food groups because produce was less affected by feed and fertilizer prices, worker shortages at packing plants, and other factors that affected those groups. (See charts 1 and 5.) Although there was a smaller initial increase in prices at the onset of the pandemic, fresh fruit and vegetable prices increased like those of the other major food groups in 2020 and 2021. Fresh fruit and vegetable prices increased 13.2 percent from January 2020 through May 2023 but leveled off during 2022 and 2023, reflecting a nearly flat index for fresh fruits and strong production in key crop-growing regions. Looking specifically at fresh vegetable prices, potato production in Idaho and Oregon increased 3 and 7 percent, respectively, from 2019 to 2020.⁶ 

Tomato production also increased in 2020 compared with 2019 in most growing regions, especially in Mexico and Canada. The increased supply for potatoes and tomatoes helped the fresh vegetables index remain more stable than the other food major groups in 2020.⁷ Within the fresh fruits and vegetables group, the fresh fruits index showed additional variation during this time period. 

Breaking down prices for fresh fruits

A breakdown of the fresh fruits index shows that prices for citrus fruits and apples declined in 2019 as ideal growing conditions increased supply. Prices then gradually increased through 2020 and 2021, along with other fresh fruits.⁸ (See chart 6.) Subsequently, citrus fruit prices spiked during the first three months of 2022 due to labor shortages, increased freight costs, and weather-related issues driving the fresh fruits index up, as seen in chart 5. Once weather conditions improved and supply increased, prices for citrus fruits declined in mid-2022.⁹

The other fresh fruits index includes avocados, cherries, berries, grapes, melons, stone fruit, and all other fresh fruit not covered in the other item categories. Other fresh fruits saw price declines later in 2022 due to increased supply of avocados, blueberries, and strawberries.¹⁰

The last quarter of 2023 saw steep price increases for both citrus fruits and other fresh fruits, specifically limes, grapes, raspberries, and blueberries. These price increases were due to the heavy rains and extreme heat caused by the El Niño weather pattern across Mexico and Peru, along with Tropical Storm Hilary, which brought heavy rains to southern California; these events disrupted growing conditions and reduced crop yields.¹¹ 

Also, during this time, apples saw a steep decrease in prices due to a larger 2023–24 apple crop, which was up 4.1 percent over the 2022–23 crop. Apples are mainly sourced from Washington, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (states that were unaffected by the adverse weather conditions).¹²

Summary

Using the CPI to examine the six major food groups provides insight into the main drivers of food-at-home price increases since 2020. First, the COVID-19 pandemic caused supply issues, logistical challenges, and cost increases fueled by the need for sanitization and other protective measures in the workplace. Additionally, staff working in close proximity exacerbated the spread of COVID-19 during a time in which there was already a shortage of workers due to higher rates of illness. Second, the Russia-Ukraine war triggered an increase in fertilizer prices, which were in most cases passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices at the supermarket; however, these higher fertilizer prices caused feed and grain to become more expensive for livestock, which led farmers to cull their herds, increasing beef supply and offsetting the drought’s effects on beef prices in the short run. Third, the avian flu affected nearly 60 million egg-laying birds across the United States, raising prices for eggs and poultry throughout 2022 and into early 2023. Finally, the CPI for fresh fruits and vegetables increased during the pandemic but did so at a lower rate than the other major food category indexes, as favorable weather conditions led to increased supply to offset other inflationary factors caused by the pandemic.