Three local stores just posted the most expensive grocery baskets I've recorded for them in 13 months of tracking Portland prices — and when I zoomed out to the year-over-year numbers, it got worse.

(New here? One day each month — typically in the third week — I track the prices of the same 20 grocery staples at stores across the metro area myself — no store pays me a dollar to be included, and none get a say in what I report. That's how you know this is the real number. August 2026 marked the 13th month I've collected this data. It's the best local snapshot of how grocery prices are shifting in the Portland market.)

Across the 19 stores I tracked in both months, the average 20-item basket rose $0.86, or 0.9%, from July's $94.36 to $95.22. That's a quiet number on its own. Underneath it, New Seasons, People's Food Co-op, and Walmart all just logged their highest basket total since I started this tracker. And when you zoom out and look at the year-over-year data for the stores I have a full dataset from for August 2025–August 2026, the numbers are shocking.

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Budget Champions — Costco, Grocery Outlet, Walmart, and WinCo — rose 3.8% on average, the biggest group move of the month. Walmart rose 9.7% to log its highest average total basket price since this tracker started, and Grocery Outlet rose 4.3% — this closeout grocer's basket moves with whatever happened to be on the shelf that week — while WinCo (+1.9%) and Costco (-0.1%) barely budged.

Conventional Contenders — Albertsons, Fred Meyer, QFC, Safeway, and Trader Joe's — actually fell 0.9%, moving the opposite direction of Budget Champions. Fred Meyer led the group lower, down 5.9%, while Albertsons moved up 3.5%. Safeway and Trader Joe's barely budged. In recent months, this group has led the charge on decreasing prices as national chains like Fred Meyer and Safeway look to close the gap with discount grocers.

Premium Grocers — Chuck's Fresh Markets, Market of Choice, New Seasons, Roth's Fresh Markets, Whole Foods, and Zupan's Markets — rose 0.6% as a group, but that hides a real split. New Seasons posted its highest basket total since I started tracking it, up 5.3% to $118.06. Roth's Fresh Markets moved the other way, down 4.7%, and Zupan's eased 2.9%.

Specialty & Co-ops — Alberta Co-op, Barbur World Foods, Natural Grocers, and People's Food Co-op — rose 1.2%. People's Food Co-op hit a new high for the store, up 2.4% to $174.82 — still the most expensive basket in the entire tracker, but it also sources organic, local, and ethically sourced products almost exclusively, which comes at a premium. Alberta Co-op was the outlier, down 1.6%.

The average lowest price for a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast hit an all-time high in August at $6.43/lb., up 10.9% from July — the highest average I've recorded for the item since the tracker launched, topping December's previous high of $6.33.

The average lowest price for canned tuna also hit a new high, up 11% to $2.12 — its steepest single-month jump of the year (Despite a weeks-long sale at WinCo Foods dragging the lowest recorded price down).

On the other side: the average lowest price for 1 dozen eggs hit a new all-time low ($2.78, down 6.4% from July) — continuing the steadiest, most consistent decline anywhere in this dataset. Eggs opened the tracker a year ago at an average of $4.48; they're now down nearly 38% from where I started.

Romaine lettuce fell the hardest of anything in the basket, down 12% to $2.78 on average last month, giving back some of July's jump.

Granulated sugar matched (but didn't exceed) its previous average high, holding at $7.23 for a 4-lb. bag — tied with February for the most expensive month I've tracked for sugar.

With 13 months of data in hand, I can now do something I couldn't do before: compare the same month, one year apart, cleanly. Across the 14 stores I've tracked continuously with a complete 20-item basket since August 2025, the average basket is up 7.6% over the past year, from $83.31 to $89.65.

That average hides some real spread store to store. Natural Grocers rose the most of anyone, up 36.5% since last August — by far the biggest single-store move in either direction. New Seasons (+16.9%) and Alberta Co-op (+16.8%) weren't far behind. On the other end, QFC is actually cheaper than it was a year ago, down 8.2% — the largest single-store drop in the panel — followed by Trader Joe's (-4.4%) and Grocery Outlet (-3%).

Item by item, the story is just as lopsided. Granulated sugar is up 36.4% since last August, from $5.30 to $7.23 for a 4-lb. bag — the single biggest year-over-year move of anything in the basket. Romaine lettuce isn't far behind, up 35%, even after falling 12% just this month. Spaghetti (+19.6%), chicken breast and russet potatoes (+17.8% each), and yellow onions (+17.4%) rounded out the sharpest increases.

Only a handful of items are actually cheaper than they were a year ago, and eggs are doing almost all of that work: down 37.9% since last August, from $4.48 to $2.78 — nothing else in the basket comes close. Cheddar cheese is the only other item with a real drop, down 12.2%. Pasta sauce and salted butter each eased less than 5%.

A few stores are missing from that comparison for different reasons. Chuck's Fresh Markets, Costco, Roth's Fresh Markets, and Zupan's Markets weren't part of the tracker yet a year ago, so there's no baseline to compare against. People's Food Co-op is also excluded — its August 2025 basket was missing more than one item, so a year-over-year comparison for August for that store specifically isn't reliable, and I didn't want to publish a number I don't trust.

The Portland Price Tracker interactive database now holds more than 5,000 data points across 13 months and 19 stores — plus, for the first time, year-over-year comparisons for the stores I've tracked long enough to support them. August's numbers are live now — filter by store, filter by item, and see exactly where your grocery dollar goes furthest this month.

The Portland Price Tracker tracks a fixed basket of 20 commonly purchased grocery items at Portland-area grocery stores one day per month — typically in the third week of the month. I collect prices myself, in person or via current weekly online listings (when the store guarantees it honors in-store pricing), and they reflect the lowest available price during the tracking week. 

Prices for August 2026 were collected on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026. Month-over-month figures compare the same 19 stores in both months. Year-over-year figures compare only stores with a complete 20-item basket in both August 2025 and August 2026; stores not yet tracked a year ago, or with an incomplete basket in either month, are excluded from that specific comparison. Organic items are flagged separately and excluded from conventional basket totals. 

Data analysis was assisted by Claude (Anthropic). All data collection, editing, and reporting is done by me.

August was a month of new territory. New Seasons and People's Food Co-op both posted the most expensive basket I've ever logged for them. Chicken breast and canned tuna joined them in record territory, while eggs kept doing what eggs have done all year: getting cheaper, now down nearly 38% from where this project started. And for the first time, I can tell you what a full year of Portland grocery shopping actually cost: up 7.6% at the stores I've watched since day one.

What's the last grocery price that genuinely surprised you — in a good or bad way? Let me know in the comments.