Sacramento Grocery Prices: What Moved in September 2026
Every week, we collect prices from 17 grocery stores across Sacramento. In September 2026 every food department cost a little more at the end of the month than at the start, led by frozen, dairy and meat.
Overall price trends
After a flat August, prices rose across the food aisles in September. Frozen rose 1.8%, dairy and eggs 1.5% and meat 1.0%. Bakery, produce and beverages rose 0.7% to 0.8%, and pantry and snacks were close to flat. Household goods fell 0.7% and alcohol 0.4%. Sales grew along with shelf prices: the average discount was 19.7% off regular price, and the share of prices on sale reached 26.7% in the last week of the month.
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 each product only at stores where we priced it in both the first and last week of the month, so neither a change in which items we collected nor a store joining partway through can show up here as a price change. We began collecting the full Raley's and Foods Co catalogs in the last week of September, and they do not affect these numbers.
| Category | Typical price Sep 1 – 7 | Typical price Sep 22 – 30 | Change (matched) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frozen | $7.13 | $6.83 | +1.8% |
| Dairy & Eggs | $6.35 | $6.34 | +1.5% |
| Meat & Seafood | $9.90 | $9.20 | +1.0% |
| Bakery | $6.71 | $6.62 | +0.8% |
| Produce | $5.72 | $5.80 | +0.7% |
| Beverages | $6.52 | $6.32 | +0.7% |
| Snacks | $6.86 | $6.67 | +0.2% |
| Pantry | $6.81 | $6.54 | +0.1% |
| Health & Beauty | $7.54 | $10.32 | -0.1% |
| Alcohol | $17.83 | $18.70 | -0.4% |
| Household | $8.69 | $8.79 | -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 rose 0.7% across about 8,500 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 1.0% after a flat August.
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 1.5% after two months of almost no movement.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Pantry spotlight
Pantry rose 0.1% 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 1.8%, the largest increase of any department, after falling 1.1% in August.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Snacks spotlight
Snacks rose 0.2% after a flat August.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Bakery spotlight
Bakery rose 0.8%, its second monthly increase in a row.
Average price across stores in the first and last week. Products sold at fewer than 3 stores are left out.
Beverages spotlight
Beverages rose 0.7%, reversing a 0.3% dip in August.
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 19.7% off regular price. The share of prices on sale each week:
| Store | Products | % on Sale | Avg Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safeway | 13,444 | 46.5% | $7.97 |
| Raley's / Bel Air / Nob Hill | 27,302 | 44.1% | $8.87 |
| FoodMaxx | 13,230 | 27.4% | $6.88 |
| Sprouts | 10,573 | 26.5% | $7.88 |
| Foods Co. | 19,945 | 22.7% | $6.42 |
| 99 Ranch Market | 2,210 | 17.9% | $5.97 |
| Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op | 9,105 | 16.4% | $8.45 |
| Whole Foods | 3,578 | 15.3% | $9.65 |
| Smart & Final | 9,827 | 15.2% | $7.83 |
| Rancho San Miguel | 9,075 | 0.6% | $5.18 |
| Trader Joe's | 3,128 | 0.0% | $5.02 |
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: 2026-09-01 – 2026-09-30 (September 2026)
- Stores tracked: 17 Sacramento-area grocery stores
- Data points: 466,625 price records across 118,187 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 118K+ products some data errors get through our filtering.
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