Romaine lettuce, ham, and other groceries that rose in price in the Midwest last month

After more than a year of historic inflation, grocery prices are staying relatively steady. Prices fell in March and April for the first time since September 2020 and have seen more moderate monthly inflation since then. In November, the cost of groceries rose 0.1% over October prices.

A drop in the spring was largely fueled by decreases in eggs—which had risen dramatically in price—as well as meats, fruits and vegetables, and dairy products.

The overall cost of groceries in November was up 1.7% from 2022, which is more consistent with the annual inflation rate that the Fed aimed for with its interest rate hikes.

Overall inflation has finally cooled following a period of historically high inflation in the past couple of years. A series of major social and economic events caused the spike, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, labor disruptions, and heightened consumer demand.

Despite the lull, groceries in some categories continued to climb. Stacker used monthly data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to find the grocery items that experienced the largest price increases over the last month in the Midwest, using year-over-year changes as a tiebreaker where needed. For this analysis, the Midwest includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Stacker excluded some hyper-specific meat categories in order to better understand grocery price fluctuations more broadly.

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