Sacramento Grocery Prices: What Moved in April 2026
Every week, we collect prices from 24 grocery stores across Sacramento. In April 2026, after March's broad declines, most categories rebounded. This report breaks down which aisles climbed, which held steady, and where your dollar still stretches furthest.
Overall price trends
After March's sweeping declines, April reversed direction. Most grocery categories in Sacramento ended the month higher than they started, driven by a softer round of weekly ads compared to the aggressive March cycles. Spirits jumped over 18%, frozen rose more than 10%, and beverages and meat each climbed around 9%. Bakery and health & beauty were the rare flat spots — barely moving from week one to week four. Sale activity stayed roughly steady at 23–30% of products on promotion.
Average Price by Category: Week-over-Week
Category breakdown
Not all aisles moved together. Spirits and frozen led the climb, while bakery and health & beauty stayed nearly flat. Here's how every category shifted from the first week of April to the last.
Price Change by Category (Apr 1 – 7 – Apr 22 – 30)
| Category | Apr 1 – 7 | Apr 22 – 30 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spirits | $18.98 | $22.48 | +18.5% |
| Frozen | $6.32 | $6.97 | +10.4% |
| Beverages | $6.67 | $7.29 | +9.4% |
| Meat & Seafood | $8.53 | $9.33 | +9.3% |
| Household | $8.17 | $8.75 | +7.1% |
| Dairy & Eggs | $6.10 | $6.45 | +5.6% |
| Snacks | $7.02 | $7.41 | +5.5% |
| Produce | $5.85 | $6.02 | +2.9% |
| Pantry | $7.37 | $7.56 | +2.6% |
| Alcohol | $18.18 | $18.25 | +0.4% |
| Bakery | $7.33 | $7.30 | -0.4% |
| Health & Beauty | $7.54 | $7.50 | -0.5% |
| Wine | $18.99 | $13.24 | -30.3% |
Produce spotlight
Produce prices move more than anything else in the store. Spring weather brought modest increases this month after March's sharp declines.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Meat & Seafood spotlight
Meat prices climbed across most cuts in April, reversing some of March's deals as sales cycles shifted.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Dairy & Eggs spotlight
Dairy and eggs ticked up in April, though more gently than the protein and frozen aisles.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Pantry spotlight
Pantry staples held relatively steady. April brought modest movement compared to March's 18% drop.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Frozen spotlight
Frozen food was one of April's biggest movers, jumping more than 10% as the spring promotional reset took effect.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Snacks spotlight
Snack prices edged higher in April. Multipack and BOGO cycles drove most of the movement.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Bakery spotlight
Bakery prices were the steadiest category in April, barely budging from where they started the month.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Beverages spotlight
Beverage prices climbed about 9% as warmer weather pushed cold-drink demand higher.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Biggest movers
These products saw the biggest real price changes across multiple stores, after filtering out one-off promotions and data quirks.
Produce
Meat & Seafood
Dairy & Eggs
Pantry
Frozen
Bakery
Sale trends
Weekly sales are a big part of the grocery price picture. The average sale discount was 18.2% off regular price. Here's how sale volume shifted week to week.
| Store | Products | % on Sale | Avg Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raley's / Bel Air / Nob Hill | 348 | 52.5% | $9.89 |
| Safeway | 11,403 | 46.7% | $8.09 |
| Sprouts | 6,908 | 36.0% | $7.93 |
| Foods Co. | 2,454 | 25.5% | $3.53 |
| FoodMaxx | 12,866 | 24.7% | $6.83 |
| Food 4 Less | 2,868 | 24.4% | $3.74 |
| Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op | 9,396 | 14.4% | $8.51 |
| Whole Foods | 3,663 | 14.2% | $9.71 |
| Smart & Final | 8,470 | 10.5% | $7.60 |
| Target | 13,004 | 6.5% | $12.24 |
| Rancho San Miguel | 8,477 | 1.6% | $5.19 |
| Trader Joe's | 2,941 | 0.0% | $5.04 |
| 99 Ranch Market | 2,261 | 0.0% | $5.98 |
How we collected this data
SacGroceries tracks prices through a combination of automated collection from store websites and community contributions. Prices are collected weekly for most stores, with some high-volume stores updated more frequently.
- Period covered: 2026-04-01 – 2026-04-30 (April 2026)
- Stores tracked: 24 Sacramento-area grocery stores
- Data points: 1,039,308 price records across 162,728 products
- Filtering: Prices below $0.10 or above $100 are excluded as likely data errors. Items must appear at 2+ stores for cross-store comparisons. Price swings over 500% between weeks are excluded. Stores where we only collect sale flyer data (over 80% of prices are sale prices) are excluded from the sale trends table since their data would be misleading.
- Averages: All averages use the effective price (sale price when available, regular price otherwise).
These numbers are a snapshot. Actual prices vary by location and date. With 163K+ products, some data errors slip through despite our filtering.
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