Grocery prices in Chicago have climbed double digits over the past year despite Trump's vow to lower them

It’s been more than a year since the Chicago Sun-Times started tracking the monthly price of 35 common grocery items at Jewel-Osco, Mariano's, Target and Walmart.

The verdict? What went up mostly didn’t come down.

At Chicago’s largest grocery chain, Jewel-Osco, 18 items went up in price, 15 stayed the same and two — Land O’ Lakes butter and Doritos nacho cheese chips — dropped by 50 cents and 80 cents over the past 13 months.

With most items going up in price, it meant our shopping cart at Jewel went up by a total of $21.80 — from $263.15 on Jan. 7, 2025, to $284.95 on Feb. 3, 2026.

President Donald Trump said during his 2024 campaign he’d get prices down “starting on Day 1” of his presidency. And high grocery prices played an out-sized role in the presidential election, with many voters saying they were “very concerned” about food costs, according to a 2024 survey by The Associated Press.

Edgewater resident Lena Howard doesn’t need hard data to know that groceries are more expensive.

“Everything is expensive — the milk, the eggs, the cereal,” Howard, 30 and the mother of two boys, 10 and 8, said as she loaded groceries into her car at a North Side Jewel. “For a box of cereal, they want damn near $10.”

Howard said she spends about $250 a week on food and household items. To stretch her budget, she cooks at home, except on Fridays, and makes big batches of spaghetti and chicken Alfredo that can be repurposed for lunches or kept in the freezer.

She usually shops at Jewel because it’s close to her home, but sometimes she makes the half-hour drive to a Walmart in Skokie, where prices are lower.

At Walmart, many of the 35 items on our list dropped in price more often than they rose compared to one year ago. Seventeen items went down, totaling $9.60 in savings, seven items increased by a total of $5.81, seven stayed the same, and four didn’t have enough data to be tracked.

The prices of our items at Mariano’s and Target mostly increased or stayed flat. A grand total for the baskets couldn’t be made because not every item was available each month.

At Mariano’s, 14 items stayed the same in price, 13 went up, six went down, and two didn't have enough data. At Target, 19 items went up, 10 went down, five stayed the same, and one didn’t have enough data.

Grocery expert Phil Lempert, known as the “Supermarket Guru,” said price increases that slammed consumers beginning in mid-2022 are mostly not going away. Climate change is affecting crops and cattle, tariffs are hitting imports and messing up farming forecasts and immigration enforcement is impacting labor, Lempert said. And the large publicly-owned food and consumer product companies are under pressure to deliver growth for their stockholders.

“It puts the consumer in a really difficult position because there’s not a lot we can do,” Lempert said.

Jewel and Mariano’s, as well as their parent companies Albertsons and Kroger, didn’t respond to requests for comment. A Target spokeswoman declined to comment.

Some of the products whose prices rose from January 2025 to February 2026 include:

• Folgers ground coffee: Jumped in price at all four stores. At Jewel and Mariano’s, prices rose 38.5%, from $6.49 in January 2025 to $8.99 in February 2026. At Target, it increased from $6.29 to $8.49, up 35%, and, at Walmart, the price increased 20.6%, from $5.78 to $6.97. Coffee prices are up nationwide due to poor harvests globally and lingering effects from tariffs.
• Nathan’s Famous bun-length hot dogs: Increased in price at all four stores. At Jewel, the price climbed from $6.49 to $8.49, a 30.8% increase. The price at Mariano’s rose from $6.49 to $7.99.
• Ground beef: Over the past year, prices rose 25% at Jewel and Walmart. Price increases nationwide are blamed on drought, smaller herd sizes and increased costs for cattle feed.
• M&M’s peanut candy: An 18.08-ounce bag cost more at Jewel, Mariano’s and Target, with the price at Jewel hitting a whopping $13.99, up 27.3% from $10.99 in January 2025.
• Oreo: Prices for an 18.12-ounce package also increased at Jewel, Mariano’s and Target. It reached $7.49 this month at Jewel, up from $6.99 in January 2025. At Mariano’s, it was $7.39, up from $6.49.
• Coke: A 12-pack cost more at all four stores. The price was $9.99 in January 2025 at Jewel and Mariano’s, and increased 20% to $11.99 this month.
• Always: A package of the feminine product rose at all four stores. At Jewel, a 46-count box jumped from $9.49 in January 2025 to $11.99 this month, a 26.3% increase.
• Pampers Swaddlers: A box of 84 size 2 diapers went up Jewel, Mariano’s and Target, with the biggest increase at Mariano’s, up 9.4% from $31.99 to $34.99.

Egg prices hit a breaking point for many consumers early last year, when avian flu decimated farms and caused prices to skyrocket.

The Sun-Times tracked Eggland's Best grade-A large white eggs, as well as individual store brands and recorded a peak in March 2025, when a dozen eggs of Eggland’s Best hit $9.49 at Mariano’s.

Those super-high prices have largely dropped now that the bird flu crisis is less of a threat.

This month, Eggland’s Best eggs were $5.99 at Jewel; $5.49 at Mariano’s for a dozen large eggs; and $3.96 for extra-large eggs at Walmart.

Store-brand eggs were as low as $1.99 at Target and $1.97 at Walmart.

Shrinkflation’s double-whammy

Tide original liquid laundry detergent rose in price at two of the four stores we checked. At the same time, its packaging size shrunk by 4 ounces over the course of 13 months, to 80 ounces.

Henry Molski, spokesperson for Procter & Gamble, the manufacturer of Tide, said the amount is less, but the detergent is still able to clean the same 64 loads of laundry advertised on the label — assuming loads of six pounds — because it was reformulated at a higher concentration.

“Tide continues to concentrate to provide a superior cleaning experience," Molski said. "In fact, Tide made its biggest upgrade in liquid in over 20 years with the Tide boosted formula in the fall of ‘25."

Tide cost $14.99 at Jewel in January 2025, and it's now $15.99. At Target, it went from $12.99 for an 84-ounce bottle to $13.69 for 80 ounces.

Edgar Dworsky, the founder of ConsumerWorld.org and a former assistant attorney general for Massachusetts, was one of the first to spot the smaller size of Tide and said many consumers won’t realize they need to use less detergent per load to get the same 64 loads. He said shrinking products pop up everywhere — from toilet-paper rolls, with a few less sheets, to a cereal box that stays the same height but gets narrower and bottles that get tapered or dimpled so they hold less liquid.

When the price stays the same on a shrinking product, the consumer loses money. When the price increases on a smaller version, it’s a double-whammy.

Shrinking products were more prevalent a few years ago, when inflation was higher, Dworsky said. Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Shrinkflation, downsizing has been around forever, and it’s not going anywhere, but we see it in waves,” he said. “At the moment, it’s fairly even.”

Consumers can guard against shrinkflation by paying attention to what's in the package, whether it's by weight or by count, of the products they regularly purchase, Dworsky said.

Because he tracks the prices of items he regularly buys, it helps him recognize when a sale is worth it.

“When you recognize a good deal, load up on that item,” Dworsky said.

‘It’s hearbreaking’

The Sun-Times tracked shelf prices and also sale prices when the deal was for a single item that didn’t require a mobile app or loyalty program.

Some sales were significant. For example, those eye-popping $13.99 bag of peanut M&M’s at Jewel were on sale in February for $8.99 — no coupon required.

But with some items we followed, the cost climbed so high that the promotional price exceeded the old shelf price.

For example, a one-pound package of 85% lean ground beef at Jewel was on sale for $6.99 this month, $1 more than the shelf price from January 2025. The sale price this month for Folgers coffee was $8.49, which was $2 more than its shelf price of $6.49 in January 2025. We also saw this trend with Oreo cookies, Tropicana orange juice and Always pads.

A New York Times/Siena poll last month found that, while a majority of Americans said they’re able to afford basics like rent, gas and groceries, close to 60% are concerned about rising costs, and only 14% said they’re able to get ahead financially.

Art Friedson, who lives in Lake View, caught a glimpse of consumers' anxiety in November. While in line at the supermarket, he saw an older couple and an “unbelievably patient” cashier spend several minutes leafing through the store’s flyer and checking its mobile app to find a coupon for one of the handful of items they were purchasing. The couple's grand total was only $7.01.

“You don’t do that unless you really, really need those extra couple of pennies,” Friedson said. “That’s how things are in a supermarket these days. It’s heartbreaking.”

Many consumers treat sales and coupons as an integral part of their shopping.

Daniel Serafini, who lives in Grayslake, said he won’t set foot in Jewel without checking the store’s ads and downloading digital coupons off Jewel’s mobile app.

The retired computer programmer said he’s found some decent deals, like four boxes of cereal for $8, but still always checks his receipt to make sure the digital coupons were applied and tells customer service if they weren’t.

But his real savings strategy is going to Woodman’s Markets, where the prices are often lower. He’ll also go to Menards, which, though it's better known for home-improvement and hardware items, also stocks many grocery products.

At Menards, Serafini shops during the store’s rebate periods, then mails his receipts to get an in-store rebate coupon equal to 11% of what he spent. He then uses those coupons to buy more items on his shopping list. He recently got close to $40 in free groceries.

“It’s worth it,” Serafini said. ”To me, it’s a no brainer.”