How did grocery (food‑at‑home) CPI year‑over‑year percentages change from 2016 to 2025 according to BLS/FRED?
Executive summary
The official BLS/FRED record for the "food‑at‑home" Consumer Price Index (CUSR0000SAF11) shows grocery inflation fluctuated but stayed mostly in low single digits across 2016–2025, with pronounced upward pressure in the pandemic and immediate post‑pandemic years and a moderation by late 2025; FRED hosts the full monthly series while the BLS press releases and ERS summaries provide recent annual rates and monthly movements [1] [2] [3]. Exact year‑over‑year percentages for every calendar year 2016–2025 are available in the FRED/BLS data download, which is the authoritative source for precise annual comparisons [1] [4].
1. What the question asks and what authoritative sources exist
The user requests the year‑over‑year percentage changes for grocery (BLS category "food‑at‑home") from 2016 through 2025; that precise time series is produced monthly by the BLS and mirrored on the St. Louis Fed’s FRED site under series CUSR0000SAF11, which is the authoritative downloadable series for exact annual percent changes [4] [1]. BLS monthly news releases and tables report the most recent annual change and monthly movements and note methodological issues—seasonal factor revisions and a 2025 lapse in appropriations that affected some published values—so any year‑by‑year readout should use the underlying series on FRED or the BLS table 2 to avoid summary errors [5] [4] [1].
2. High‑level pattern 2016–2019: steady, low grocery inflation
Through the mid‑2010s, grocery inflation was modest and stable—annual increases in the "food‑at‑home" CPI during 2016–2019 were generally in low single digits rather than in the high inflation territory seen later, a pattern confirmed by the long‑run BLS series and visual charts available on the BLS site and FRED [6] [1]. The BLS historical CPI pages and FRED allow month‑to‑month inspection and show the industry characterization of that interval as a relatively calm period for grocery prices [6] [1].
3. 2020–2022: pandemic shocks and elevated grocery inflation
Starting in 2020 the food‑at‑home CPI moved higher as pandemic supply‑chain disruptions, labor constraints, and commodity swings pushed grocery prices up; the series on FRED and BLS charts documents a notable rise in year‑over‑year grocery inflation during 2021–2022 that outpaced the earlier stable period, consistent with broader commentary from USDA/ERS and CRS analyses on retail food price dynamics during that time [1] [7] [8]. BLS methodology notes (seasonal adjustments and intervention analyses) are relevant here because seasonal factor changes can revise short‑run month‑to‑month seasonally adjusted figures in the 5‑year revision window, so users comparing years should use consistent nonseasonally adjusted annual values or download the FRED/BLS series to ensure comparability [5] [2].
4. 2023–2025: moderation but still positive grocery inflation
By 2023–2025 grocery inflation moderated from its peak but remained positive; BLS monthly releases and ERS summaries reported food‑at‑home twelve‑month increases in the low single digits through 2025—for example, ERS reported the food‑at‑home CPI was 2.4 percent higher in December 2025 than in December 2024, while BLS’s December 2025 release reported the broader food index rose 3.1 percent over the last year and that the food‑at‑home index rose 0.7 percent in December 2025 [3] [2] [9]. Other BLS publications showed year‑to‑May‑2025 food‑at‑home up about 2.2 percent (May 2025 annual), underscoring a downward trend in the annual rate compared with peak pandemic years [10] [7].
5. Caveats, methodological notes, and where to get exact year‑by‑year numbers
BLS seasonally adjusted series are revised each February and can be adjusted using intervention analysis for specific series, and the 2025 lapse in appropriations led to missing values for some 2025 months in BLS tables—therefore the cleanest path to exact calendar‑year‑over‑year percentages for 2016–2025 is to download the CUSR0000SAF11 series from FRED or Table 2/CSV files on the BLS site and compute 12‑month percent changes from monthly end‑points [5] [4] [1]. Sources differ slightly in framing (BLS focuses on CPI releases and methodological notes; ERS synthesizes CPI and PPI for food outlooks; CRS provides policy brief context), so cross‑checking the raw FRED/BLS series is recommended to avoid errors introduced by secondary summaries [2] [3] [7].