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USDA’s 2024 Forecast: Food Inflation Was Expected to Slow in 2025

USDA’s July 2024 forecast called for a 0.7% rise in 2025 grocery prices. The forecast later changed, and USDA measured a 2.3% annual increase, with sharp differences by category.
From TheFinanceBase Team2 min to read
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The July 2024 headline was a forecast, not the eventual result: USDA expected grocery prices to rise 0.7% in 2025. The forecast changed as new data arrived. USDA later measured a 2.3% average increase in food-at-home prices for 2025, with substantially different changes across food categories.

What USDA forecast when the headline was published

A July 26, 2024, Successful Farming report from FERN’s Ag Insider said USDA forecast grocery prices would rise 0.7% in 2025, describing that as the smallest increase in seven years. The same report put USDA’s forecast for grocery inflation in 2024 at 1%.

Those estimates came after food-at-home prices rose 11.4% in 2022 and 5% in 2023, figures reported in the 2024 article. In that context, “already low” meant inflation had eased from the recent surge; it did not mean grocery prices were falling.

Why the forecast and the eventual result differ

USDA’s Economic Research Service updates its Food Price Outlook monthly using the latest available Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each estimate belongs to a particular forecast vintage, so an early projection can change as additional price data become available.

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By February 26, 2025, USDA ERS forecast food-at-home prices to rise 3.3% in 2025. Its prediction interval ran from −0.2% to 7.0%, illustrating the uncertainty around the estimate. That was a different forecast from the July 2024 projection of 0.7%.

In a later report, USDA ERS said average food-at-home prices in 2025 were 2.3% higher than in 2024. That observed annual result was below the 20-year historical annual rate of 2.6%. It was also distinct from the 2.9% increase in overall food prices, which includes food away from home.

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What the grocery inflation figures measure

Food-at-home is USDA’s measure for grocery prices. Food-away-from-home covers restaurant and other foodservice purchases. The measures should not be treated as interchangeable: a statistic for groceries alone does not describe the full cost of food, and an all-food figure includes more than grocery shopping.

USDA’s annual percentage changes describe average prices over a year. They are not a prediction of an individual household’s bill, the price of a fixed basket or menu, or how much food a family buys. Your experience can differ according to what you purchase and how your shopping habits change.

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USDA’s current Food Price Outlook explains its forecast series and measures; the relevant forecast vintage matters when comparing a projection with the eventual annual result.

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The 2025 average concealed large category changes

The 2.3% food-at-home increase was an average, not a uniform change across grocery aisles. USDA reported these annual average changes for 2025 compared with 2024:

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Food category 2025 average price change
Eggs Up 21.9%
Beef and veal Up 11.6%
Sugar and sweets Up 5.1%
Nonalcoholic beverages Up 3.8%
Fresh vegetables Down 0.4%
Fats and oils Down 0.8%

USDA attributed the egg increase in part to the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak that began in 2022. Egg prices then fell steadily from April through December 2025. That monthly decline did not erase the higher average price across the full year.

The category figures and the annual food-at-home result are reported in USDA ERS’s Food Price Outlook summary findings. They show why an overall grocery inflation rate may not match a household’s experience: the categories that make up each household’s shopping basket differ.

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