Which food categories (meat, dairy, produce) saw the biggest price changes since 2021?
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Executive summary
Meat-related categories — particularly meats and poultry and the closely linked eggs subgroup — experienced the largest price swings since 2021, driving much of the surge in grocery bills in 2021–22 and remaining a volatile category through 2024 [1] [2]. Dairy showed some sharp, product-specific moves (notably eggs counted in some indexes), while produce rose too but generally less dramatically than meats when measured by CPI and USDA analyses [3] [4].
1. Why “since 2021” matters: the inflation arc that singled out meat
The period beginning in 2021 saw grocery inflation accelerate: overall all‑food prices rose 3.9 percent in 2021 and then jumped 9.9 percent in 2022, the fastest annual pace since 1979 — and USDA economists explicitly point to meats and poultry as major contributors to the early food‑at‑home surge [1]. USDA/ERS and related ERS charts show food price dynamics from 2020–24 where meats and poultry were repeatedly identified as exceptional drivers of retail increases tied to pandemic disruptions and subsequent shocks [3] [5].
2. Meats, poultry and eggs: the biggest, most visible movers
Multiple government and industry trackers single out the meats/poultry grouping and specific items like eggs as the standout price movers: eggs experienced one of the steepest single‑product year‑over‑year spikes (reported as a 32.2 percent CPI jump from December 2021 to December 2022 in FAO/Statista reporting), and more broadly the meats and poultry index is repeatedly identified by USDA as central to the 2021–22 food inflation story [2] [1]. News trackers that use point‑of‑sale data (NIQ via NBC) likewise emphasize sharp swings in chicken and ground beef prices in the period starting in 2021, confirming the CPI signals with real checkout data [6].
3. Dairy: notable shocks but smaller overall lift than meat group
“Dairy” as a broad category did see volatility in the period, but the reporting points to product‑level shocks (eggs are often reported alongside dairy/eggs in indexes) rather than a sustained, larger percent increase across all dairy items that would eclipse meats overall [2] [7]. USDA and Statista analyses emphasize that while individual dairy products can spike, the aggregate meat/poultry/eggs index produced the dominant contribution to food‑at‑home inflation in the early years of the series examined [1] [2].
4. Produce: upward pressure but fewer headline‑grabbing spikes
Produce prices rose amid the same constellation of supply shocks, weather events, and cost pressures that lifted food overall, but the sources show produce generally did not match the magnitude or visibility of the meat/eggs moves in CPI terms; ERS and GAO summaries describe variation across food groups, with meats/eggs repeatedly called out as outsized contributors to the 2021–22 surge while produce increases were part of a broader, more distributed rise [3] [4].
5. Why meats jumped: disease, trade and energy costs
The reporting ties the meat/eggs surge to identifiable shocks: a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak reduced poultry supplies, while the pandemic‑era supply‑chain disruptions, higher energy and fertilizer costs, and geopolitical events (e.g., Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) compounded inflationary pressure on agricultural inputs and transport — factors the USDA and other analysts cite when explaining why meat and egg prices rose so sharply during 2021–22 [3] [1] [2].
6. Limits, caveats and alternate reads of the data
Official CPI and USDA ERS series smooth monthly swings into annual indexes and groupings that can mask item‑level extremes; point‑of‑sale trackers (NIQ/NBC) show some timing and magnitude differences versus CPI releases, and GAO stresses geographic and product variability — for instance, some cities saw higher increases than national averages — so aggregate statements about “meat vs. produce vs. dairy” are robust at the national index level but will not match every household’s experience [6] [4].
7. Bottom line
Measured by CPI and USDA/ERS reporting for the 2021–24 window, meat‑related categories — including poultry and eggs — produced the largest and most disruptive price changes, dairy had notable product‑specific spikes but less aggregate impact than meats, and produce rose as well but without matching the magnitude of the meat/eggs surge in the primary sources reviewed [1] [2] [3].