Six years ago, a 5-pound family pack of chicken breast cost roughly $15.01. Today, that same pack averages about $20.40.
Grocery prices have increased significantly in Michigan and the Midwest since just before the pandemic.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), grocery prices in the Midwest rose an average of 29.7% between January 2020 and December 2025.
Datasembly, which measures weekly changes in prices by collecting store data, found that grocery prices in Michigan increased an average of 38.5% over that time.
For this story, MLive looked at Michigan and Midwest price and inflation data for multiple everyday grocery items to see how much costs have risen since just before the pandemic and whether shoppers…
Six years ago, a 5-pound family pack of chicken breast cost roughly $15.01. Today, that same pack averages about $20.40.
Grocery prices have increased significantly in Michigan and the Midwest since just before the pandemic.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), grocery prices in the Midwest rose an average of 29.7% between January 2020 and December 2025.
Datasembly, which measures weekly changes in prices by collecting store data, found that grocery prices in Michigan increased an average of 38.5% over that time.
For this story, MLive looked at Michigan and Midwest price and inflation data for multiple everyday grocery items to see how much costs have risen since just before the pandemic and whether shoppers have seen any relief.
Grocery prices, and the cost of other goods, rapidly rose as inflation surged in 2021 before starting to slow by mid-to-late 2022. The cost of goods was a major factor in the 2024 presidential election.
While inflation has cooled in the years since, experts caution shoppers that prices aren’t likely to return to pre-pandemic levels.
“Even if consumers don’t necessarily feel like prices are coming down, inflation, the growth in prices, is coming down,” said Josh Hilton, visiting professor at Grand Valley State University’s Seidman College of Business. “Prices themselves are not going down.”
According to the latest numbers from the BLS, grocery prices in the Midwest rose 1.8% over the past year. The BLS’ Midwest data has some shortcomings when calculating grocery prices for Michigan, as it’s a regional look at inflation facing urban households across 12 states.
Prices not going down may sound like a bad thing, but Hilton warned that deflation has negative economic consequences.
“The best we can hope for is that prices will stabilize and that the rate of increase will slow down,” he said.
Some items, though, like ground beef and coffee, continue to rise in price. Others, like eggs, are steadily decreasing in price after a rollercoaster of price changes. Still more, like white bread and potatoes, remain largely flat.
For most goods, the COVID-era increase in grocery prices stemmed from several factors, Hilton said.
Those factors included a surge in grocery demand because restaurants were closed in 2020, a drop in supply chain capacity because of COVID outbreaks and labor shortages across the food system, and shortages of farm labor due to visa restrictions, he said.
Then in 2022 the Russo-Ukrainian war began in full, disrupting global grain markets and spiking the price of wheat and fertilizer. That same year, a bird flu outbreak began ripping through commercial flocks, significantly increasing the price of eggs.
After peaking at $6.40 a dozen in March 2025, egg prices have dropped dramatically as the flock of egg-laying hens has been replenished. According to the December 2025 national average, egg prices are now around $2.71 a dozen.
Eggs, shown in this file photo, have increased and then decreased at times over the last six years. In 2022, a bird flu outbreak began ripping through commercial flocks, significantly increasing the price of eggs. (MLive file photo)MLive/The Grand Rapids Press
Egg prices in Michigan are still about 46.6% higher than they were in January 2020, according to Datasembly. The peak for egg prices in Michigan was in January 2023, when eggs roughly doubled from their pre-pandemic price.
Hilton said egg prices should continue to drop, barring any unexpected events.
While recent, Midwest-specific price data isn’t available for coffee, the national average price has risen by 33.5% in the past year, from $6.77 a pound to $9.05.
In January 2020, the national average was $4.17 a pound, about 53.9% cheaper than current prices.
Hilton said Trump’s 40% tariffs on imports from Brazil, a major coffee exporter, were a contributing factor in the coffee price increase. Climate change, too, is causing problems with coffee yields.
Trump removed those tariffs in November 2025.
“Maybe in 2026 we’ll start to see coffee prices come back down,” Hilton said. “But it may be the case that consumers just have to get used to the higher price.”
Shutdowns of meatpacking plants and other supply chain disruptions pushed beef prices higher during the pandemic years. While those have been resolved, beef prices continue to climb.
According to Midwest data from the BLS, the price per pound of ground beef rose from $5.81 to $6.75, a 16.2% increase, between December 2024 and December 2025.
Ground beef was $3.70 per pound in January 2020, or about 45.2% cheaper than current prices.
Tariffs on Brazil pushed beef prices higher over the past year but other factors, like very strong demand and low supply, are also driving the upward pressure on price, Hilton said.
That lower supply is due to a reduction in imports along with a shrinking cattle herd, which is in the contraction phase of the roughly eight-to-12-year cycle, he said.
Demand could keep growing, and prices with it, depending on how strictly people follow the new dietary guidelines for beef released earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“I think we could possibly see even higher demand in the future because of the new dietary guidelines from the HHS where red meat is now elevated to a staple food, and it encourages the use of beef tallow in cooking,” Hilton said. “So to the extent that people take their advice from the HHS, that could also increase demand for beef and thus put upward pressure on the price.”
While not as dramatic as the coffee and eggs price shifts, potato chip prices have steadily increased since before the pandemic, going from $4.09 per pound in January 2020 to $6.47 per pound in December 2025, a 58.2% increase.
A year ago, in December 2024, potato chips were about 7.6% cheaper at $5.98 a pound.
Hilton said that increasing costs, such as the cost of fertilizer and labor, along with climate change threatening local potato harvests in Pennsylvania, are contributing factors in why the price of chips are outpacing inflation.** **Pennsylvania is a major hub for potato chip production.
“Potatoes only grow in a certain range of soil temperature, so climate change is threatening the viability of local potatoes,” he said. “The snack makers there have to look to Idaho and other western states for their supply, so that adds to the shipping cost.”