Sacramento Grocery Prices: What Moved in July 2026
Every week, we collect prices from 20 grocery stores across Sacramento — our widest coverage yet, and the most prices we have recorded in a single month. July 2026 drifted upward across most of the store, though never by much.
Overall price trends
July nudged up almost everywhere. On matched products dairy and snacks led at 1.3%, with beverages at 1.2% and produce at 1.0%; frozen recovered 0.9% of June's 2.1% drop. Household finished flat and health & beauty was the only real decline at 0.8%. This was also our broadest month of collection — 20 stores and more than 440,000 price records — so the July figures rest on more data than any month before them.
Category Price Index: Week-over-Week (first week = 100)
Category breakdown
Eight departments up, two down, none by more than 1.3%. These figures compare only products we priced 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 — which is why they are far smaller than a raw average of each department would suggest.
Price Change by Category (Jul 1 – 7 – Jul 22 – 31)
| Category | Typical price Jul 1 – 7 | Typical price Jul 22 – 31 | Change (matched) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dairy & Eggs | $5.81 | $6.14 | +1.3% |
| Snacks | $6.09 | $6.64 | +1.3% |
| Beverages | $6.35 | $6.43 | +1.2% |
| Produce | $5.21 | $5.66 | +1.0% |
| Frozen | $6.49 | $6.57 | +0.9% |
| Meat & Seafood | $8.71 | $8.85 | +0.8% |
| Pantry | $6.03 | $7.05 | +0.8% |
| Bakery | $6.21 | $6.90 | +0.6% |
| Household | $7.85 | $8.14 | 0.0% |
| Alcohol | $18.35 | $17.93 | -0.1% |
| Health & Beauty | $7.46 | $7.55 | -0.8% |
The two price columns are plain averages of everything we recorded in those weeks — useful for 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 in both weeks.
Produce spotlight
Produce added 1.0% as June's melon and stone-fruit gluts cleared.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Meat & Seafood spotlight
Meat rose 0.8%, a steady climb through peak grilling season.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Dairy & Eggs spotlight
Dairy and eggs led the month at 1.3%, with yogurt and single-serve protein doing most of the lifting.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Pantry spotlight
Pantry added 0.8% across roughly 11,300 matched products.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Frozen spotlight
Frozen rose 0.9%, clawing back part of June's 2.1% decline as the ice cream promotions ended.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Snacks spotlight
Snacks tied dairy for the month's largest move at 1.3%.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Bakery spotlight
Bakery added 0.6%, near the middle of a narrow pack.
Products with the biggest price swings across multiple stores. Items available at fewer than 3 stores are excluded.
Beverages spotlight
Beverages rose 1.2% in the hottest stretch of the summer.
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 18.9% off regular price. Here's how sale volume shifted week to week.
| Store | Products | % on Sale | Avg Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safeway | 11,995 | 45.7% | $7.90 |
| Foods Co. | 7,574 | 30.6% | $5.13 |
| Food 4 Less | 8,720 | 30.1% | $5.20 |
| FoodMaxx | 13,256 | 26.2% | $6.90 |
| Sprouts | 7,038 | 22.7% | $7.96 |
| 99 Ranch Market | 2,305 | 15.8% | $5.92 |
| Whole Foods | 4,138 | 15.3% | $9.29 |
| Smart & Final | 8,660 | 13.9% | $7.54 |
| Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op | 9,189 | 11.7% | $8.59 |
| Target | 13,508 | 8.7% | $11.52 |
| Rancho San Miguel | 9,196 | 1.0% | $5.22 |
| Trader Joe's | 3,042 | 0.0% | $5.10 |
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: 2026-07-01 – 2026-07-31 (July 2026)
- Stores tracked: 20 Sacramento-area grocery stores
- Data points: 440,712 price records across 96,178 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 96K+ products, some data errors slip through despite our filtering.
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