Let’s call it a subtle Thanksgiving miracle. After months of watching grocery receipts inch higher and higher, Portland shoppers finally caught a break in November.
Is it huge? No. But we’ll take it.
The overall price of our Portland Price Tracker 20-item grocery basket dropped from $97.17 in October to $95.58 in November. That’s a savings of $1.59 across the 20 stores we tracked in both months, representing a 1.63% market-wide decrease.
If you’re new here, welcome. The Portland Price Tracker is a data-driven monthly report by Stumptown Savings on the real cost of groceries in our city. Each month, we track 20 grocery staples across 21 stores — now including Zupan’s Markets — categorized into four distinct groups for clear, direct comparison. Here is the true financial story of the market in November.
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Stumptown Savings isn’t just a newsletter — it’s solutions driven consumer journalism designed to help you shop smarter.
Take the Portland Price Tracker for example: Each month, we meticulously track prices across 21 stores, crunch the data, and analyze the trends to help you go beyond generic inflation data to see exactly how prices are shifting at your favorite grocery stores. This work is entirely independent and reader-funded. To sustain this crucial consumer reporting and fight for your wallet in 2026, Stumptown Savings has launched our end-of-year $8,000 fundraiser.
The November Takeaway by Grocery Group
The market was sharply split between groups delivering competitive cuts and those raising prices. While the Budget and Conventional stores led the overall price drop, the Premium sector experienced the wildest volatility — with massive discounts at Whole Foods offset by sharp spikes at Chuck's.
Store Grouping | October Average Basket | November Average Basket | Price Change | Trend |
Budget Champions (4 Stores) | $58.44 | $56.53 | -3.27% | Dropped |
Conventional Contenders (5 Stores) | $67.07 | $65.20 | -2.79% | Dropped |
Premium Grocers (6 Stores) | $91.38 | $90.84 | -0.59% | Flat |
Specialty Markets (5 Stores) | $141.16 | $142.59 | +1.01% | Increased |
New Store Alert: Zupan's Markets (Premium Grocers)
We are officially expanding the map. This month, we welcomed Zupan’s Markets to the Premium Grocers category of the Stumptown Savings Portland Price Tracker project.
November Basket Total: $142.06
This places Zupan’s firmly in the upper crust of Portland grocery pricing—cheaper than the highest specialty baskets like People’s Food Co-op ($156.28) and Sheridan Fruit Co. ($152.49), but comparable to the high-cost co-ops like Alberta Co-op ($146.74). We’ll start tracking their month-over-month moves in December.
Note on Price Integrity: Zupan's Markets ($142.06) is included in the Premium Grocers category average for its snapshot cost but is excluded from the month-over-month Price Change calculation this month.
Biggest Item Swings: October to November
Looking across all 20 tracked items, the volatility in the food supply chain was clear this month. The price of baking staples plummeted, while fresh items were hit hard.
Direction | Item | October Average Price | November Average Price | Change |
Biggest Drop | All-Purpose Flour (5 lb. bag) | $6.49 | $3.94 | -39.21% |
Biggest Rise | Romaine Lettuce (per head) | $2.39 | $3.04 | +27.20% |
Second-Biggest Rise | Whole Milk (1 gallon) | $5.02 | $5.45 | +8.57% |
The enormous drop in flour prices saved the average basket significant money, while the major spike in Romaine lettuce was the largest headwind for consumers.
The Winners (October to November)
The true winners this month were the stores making aggressive cuts that paid off for consumers in their wallets.
Premium Grocers. Although this category was functionally flat overall, it delivered the deepest individual discounts in the market. Cuts at Whole Foods ($9.15 savings / -9.37%) and Market of Choice ($5.71 savings / -6.40%) were the primary force driving the overall market's price drop.
Grocery Outlet. In the Budget Champions category, cuts to the price of potatoes and toilet paper saw Grocery Outlet’s total basket price drop -13.39% overall (the largest drop of all stores), falling from $65.66 in October to just $56.87 in November, slotting them into second place for the lowest total among all 21 stores.
Trader Joe’s and Natural Grocers: In the Conventional Contenders group, Trader Joe’s recorded the biggest positive move, with cuts across multiple products adding up to a total basket price change of -8.94% ($6.99 savings). Rounding out the trend, Natural Grocers (Specialty Markets) also significantly lowered its basket by -5.83%, showing competitive pricing within the highest price tiers.
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The Bottom Line for November
The stability we saw this month is deceptive. The data reveals a marketplace split into two camps: Budget and Conventional stores led the market drop, while Specialty stores raised prices.
The Budget Champions (-3.27%) and Conventional Contenders (-2.79%) were the true drivers of market relief, competing aggressively and delivering reliable savings in lockstep. The Premium Grocers (-0.59%) were functionally flat, and Specialty Markets (+1.01%) saw the only average price hike this month.
This highlights a key opportunity for savings: you must "shop the groups" strategically. Loyalty to a Specialty store this month meant absorbing a price hike, whereas shifting your purchases toward the reliable Budget/Conventional groups—or hunting the aggressive cuts in the Premium sector—proved to be the winning defense against unpredictable inflation.
The Data
Portland Price Tracker Methodology
To ensure fair and consistent comparisons, all prices reflect shelf prices collected during the third week of November 2025. This report tracks 20 standardized grocery staples across 21 stores in the Portland metro area. All collected data is based on pre-packaged goods — not bulk sections — (where applicable) to ensure consistency across all retailers.
We maintain two distinct policies for handling items that are unavailable or out of scope:
Permanent Substitutions (Items a store does not carry): If a store does not carry a specific item in our 20-item basket as a standard stock item, we use the closest alternative product the store offers. For instance, because People's Food Co-op does not carry conventional ground beef, we substitute a plant-based ground beef alternative they do stock.
Out-of-Stock/Temporary Unavailable Items: If a store is temporarily out of a specific item they normally stock (as was the case with numerous items at Sheridan Fruit Co. in November), we carry forward their most recent shelf price from the month prior for that specific item(s).
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