Sacramento Grocery Prices: What Moved in August 2026
Every week, we collect prices from 18 grocery stores across Sacramento. In August 2026 health and beauty rose 2.2% and frozen fell 1.1%, and every other department finished within 0.6% of where it started.
Overall price trends
Health & beauty rose 2.2% and frozen fell 1.1%. Bakery rose 0.6%, produce 0.3%, and meat and dairy 0.1%. Pantry and beverages fell 0.3%, and snacks, alcohol and household 0.1%. The average sale discount was 19.1% off regular price.
Each line follows the products priced at the same store in consecutive weeks, starting from the first week (dashed). Its end point can differ from the first-to-last-week figures in the next chart, which use only products priced in both of those weeks. Point at a week to read it.
Category breakdown
These figures compare only products we priced at the same store in both the first and last week of the month, so a change in which items we collected cannot show up here as a price change. That is why they are smaller than a plain average of each department would suggest.
| Category | Typical price Aug 1 – 7 | Typical price Aug 22 – 31 | Change (matched) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health & Beauty | $7.51 | $7.68 | +2.2% |
| Bakery | $6.51 | $6.52 | +0.6% |
| Produce | $5.60 | $5.63 | +0.3% |
| Meat & Seafood | $9.47 | $9.60 | +0.1% |
| Dairy & Eggs | $6.15 | $6.19 | +0.1% |
| Snacks | $6.22 | $6.79 | -0.1% |
| Alcohol | $18.09 | $17.92 | -0.1% |
| Household | $8.39 | $8.86 | -0.1% |
| Pantry | $6.46 | $6.59 | -0.3% |
| Beverages | $6.11 | $6.23 | -0.3% |
| Frozen | $6.78 | $6.84 | -1.1% |
The two price columns are plain averages of everything we recorded in those weeks. They give a sense of scale, but the mix of items behind them shifts, so they will not divide out to the change column. The change is measured only on products we priced at the same store in both weeks.
Produce spotlight
Produce rose 0.3% across about 8,100 matched products.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Meat & Seafood spotlight
Meat and seafood rose 0.1%.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Dairy & Eggs spotlight
Dairy and eggs rose 0.1%.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Pantry spotlight
Pantry fell 0.3% across roughly 13,900 matched products.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Frozen spotlight
Frozen fell 1.1%, the largest decline of any department.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Snacks spotlight
Snacks fell 0.1%.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Bakery spotlight
Bakery rose 0.6%, the largest increase of any food department.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Beverages spotlight
Beverages fell 0.3%.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Biggest movers
The largest price changes among products sold at two or more stores, with one-off promotions and likely data errors filtered out.
Produce
Meat & Seafood
Dairy & Eggs
Pantry
Frozen
Bakery
Sale trends
The average sale discount was 19.1% off regular price. The share of prices on sale each week:
| Store | Products | % on Sale | Avg Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safeway | 11,928 | 47.4% | $8.01 |
| FoodMaxx | 13,766 | 26.2% | $6.88 |
| Sprouts | 7,205 | 25.3% | $7.84 |
| Foods Co. | 998 | 25.0% | $3.79 |
| 99 Ranch Market | 2,237 | 18.1% | $5.94 |
| Whole Foods | 3,662 | 15.1% | $9.53 |
| Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op | 9,094 | 14.4% | $8.52 |
| Smart & Final | 9,434 | 13.3% | $7.84 |
| Target | 5,858 | 9.5% | $6.66 |
| Oto's Marketplace | 66 | 9.1% | $6.98 |
| Rancho San Miguel | 7,277 | 1.1% | $5.16 |
| Trader Joe's | 3,088 | 0.0% | $5.01 |
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: 2026-08-01 – 2026-08-31 (August 2026)
- Stores tracked: 18 Sacramento-area grocery stores
- Data points: 371,949 price records across 87,981 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).
Prices vary by location and date, and with 88K+ products some data errors get through our filtering.
Want to find the best prices right now?
Compare prices across all 18 Sacramento stores, or build a shopping list that finds the cheapest option for every item.