Sacramento Grocery Prices: What Moved in March 2026
Every week, we collect prices from 24 grocery stores across Sacramento. In March 2026, comparing the same products at the start and end of the month, every department finished within 0.7% of where it began.
Overall price trends
Pantry and bakery fell 0.7%, the largest moves of the month. Snacks fell 0.6%, dairy and beverages 0.5%, and meat and produce 0.3%. Household rose 0.6%, alcohol 0.4% and frozen 0.3%, and health & beauty was unchanged. The average sale discount was 18.3% 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 Mar 1 – 7 | Typical price Mar 22 – 31 | Change (matched) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Household | $9.18 | $8.82 | +0.6% |
| Alcohol | $25.12 | $18.60 | +0.4% |
| Frozen | $6.16 | $6.50 | +0.3% |
| Health & Beauty | $7.75 | $7.68 | 0.0% |
| Produce | $7.42 | $5.91 | -0.3% |
| Meat & Seafood | $8.92 | $9.07 | -0.3% |
| Dairy & Eggs | $6.27 | $6.31 | -0.5% |
| Beverages | $6.73 | $6.41 | -0.5% |
| Snacks | $8.10 | $7.11 | -0.6% |
| Pantry | $9.03 | $7.29 | -0.7% |
| Bakery | $7.56 | $7.40 | -0.7% |
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 fell 0.3% across about 7,700 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 fell 0.3%.
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 fell 0.5%.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Pantry spotlight
Pantry fell 0.7% across roughly 15,000 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 rose 0.3%, one of three departments that finished higher.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Snacks spotlight
Snacks fell 0.6%.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Bakery spotlight
Bakery fell 0.7%, tied with pantry for the largest decline.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Beverages spotlight
Beverages fell 0.5%.
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 18.3% off regular price. The share of prices on sale each week:
| Store | Products | % on Sale | Avg Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raley's / Bel Air / Nob Hill | 1,166 | 79.3% | $9.77 |
| Safeway | 13,420 | 50.8% | $7.77 |
| Sprouts | 6,790 | 36.3% | $7.82 |
| FoodMaxx | 13,405 | 25.4% | $6.79 |
| Smart & Final | 8,749 | 19.3% | $7.48 |
| Whole Foods | 3,505 | 15.6% | $9.56 |
| Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op | 9,283 | 13.5% | $8.52 |
| Target | 13,235 | 9.8% | $11.74 |
| Rancho San Miguel | 8,416 | 0.7% | $5.20 |
| Trader Joe's | 2,909 | 0.0% | $5.07 |
| 99 Ranch Market | 2,286 | 0.0% | $5.94 |
| Foods Co. | 16,447 | 0.0% | $6.46 |
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: 2026-03-01 – 2026-03-31 (March 2026)
- Stores tracked: 24 Sacramento-area grocery stores
- Data points: 582,825 price records across 143,373 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 143K+ products some data errors get through our filtering.
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