Five stores just posted the highest basket totals we've ever recorded for them — in the same month. It's only the second time that's happened in 11 months of the Portland Price Tracker; the last time was May, when seven stores did it at once. (New here? Each month, I track the prices of the same 20 grocery staples at stores across town. It's the best local snapshot of how grocery prices are shifting in the Portland market.)

Across the 19 stores tracked in both May and June — Basics Market's transition to a Market of Choice took it out of the dataset this month, and we're comparing the same 19 stores in both months for a fair read — the average 20-item basket rose $1.08, or 1.1%, from $94.78 to $95.86. That's a modest move on its own. But underneath it, five stores just hit their most expensive basket total we've ever logged: Alberta Co-op, Grocery Outlet, Market of Choice, Natural Grocers, and Zupan's Markets all set new highs simultaneously.

Basics Market's Hillsdale location — the last one standing — transitioned to Market of Choice branding on June 23, with no store closure. That's why it drops out of this month's tracking under its old name. We don't track multiple locations of the same chain, so the newly-converted store won't be added as a separate line — this simply takes the tracker from 20 stores to 19.

Budget Champions — Costco, Grocery Outlet, Walmart, and WinCo — rose 6.3% on average, the biggest group move this month. Grocery Outlet drove almost all of it: its basket jumped $14.11 (+25.6%) to a new all-time high, powered almost entirely by one item — vegetable oil, which went from $5.29 to $17.01. That's a canola-olive oil blend in a smaller bottle (16.9 oz. for $5.99) converted to our standard 48 oz. comparison size — a different product than what was on the shelf in May, and a reminder that Grocery Outlet's opportunistic inventory can distort the basket total from month to month. Walmart also rose ($3.44, +6.1%). WinCo, as usual, barely moved (−$0.16) and remains the cheapest store in the tracker by a wide margin — though our same-day check of 13 WinCo locations found that "cheapest" doesn't mean "identical" store to store.

Conventional Contenders — Albertsons, Fred Meyer, QFC, Safeway, and Trader Joe's — actually fell 3.1%, moving in the opposite direction of Budget Champions. Fred Meyer, Safeway, Albertsons, and QFC all dropped between 3.5% and 4.9%. Trader Joe's was the outlier, up $0.96. Worth noting: Kroger's new CEO has publicly pushed to cut prices in 2026 to win back shoppers from Walmart, Costco, and Aldi — possibly a small piece of what's showing up at Fred Meyer and QFC, both Kroger-owned banners.

Premium Grocers — Chuck's Fresh Markets, Market of Choice, New Seasons, Roth's Fresh Markets, Whole Foods, and Zupan's Markets — rose 1.4%. New Seasons didn't move at all: $107.96 in May, $107.96 in June, to the penny. Market of Choice hit an all-time high ($92.59), driven by vegetable oil, russet potatoes, romaine, and ground beef all ticking up together, roughly a dollar apiece. Zupan's technically set a new high too, but only by $0.11 — essentially flat — and it's been the most expensive store in this group every single month since we started tracking it.

Specialty & Co-ops — Alberta Co-op, Barbur World Foods, Natural Grocers, and People's Food Co-op — rose 1.4%. Two of the four hit all-time highs. Natural Grocers jumped $11.76 (+8.0%), driven mainly by organic russet potatoes, which went from $3.59 to $11.95 — the same item that pushed the average price across all stores to an 11-month high (more below) — with ground coffee also up $3.00. Alberta Co-op rose more modestly (+$2.16) to a new high of its own, led by salted butter, which jumped from $5.49 to $10.99 after their usual low-price option, Alpenrose, was out of stock — partly offset by a $2.50 drop in whole milk. Barbur World Foods moved the other way, down $5.89 — its salted butter fell $3.50 and its spaghetti and apples both dropped too.

Russet potatoes hit an 11-month high at $4.76/5-lb. bag, up 10.6% from May's $4.31. Natural Grocers' organic potatoes (up to $11.95) pulled the average up hardest, but this wasn't just one store — it's the highest average we've recorded since tracking began.

Ground beef rose to $8.02/lb. (+0.9%), continuing the slow climb we flagged back in April — though it's not quite a record. November 2025 was higher, at $8.04/lb.

Vegetable oil rose 8.7% to $9.44, driven largely by Grocery Outlet's swing, though several other stores — Alberta Co-op, Whole Foods, and Market of Choice among them — ticked up too.

On the other side: eggs hit an 11-month low ($3.01, down 8.8%) — continuing the steepest, steadiest decline in the whole dataset. Cheddar cheese also fell, to $3.66 (down 4.2%) — its second-lowest average since we started tracking, just behind September's $3.62. And apples fell 8.4%, giving back most of May's spike, exactly the seasonal pattern we expected once new-crop apples started arriving.

The Portland Price Tracker interactive database now holds more than 4,300 data points across 11 months and 20-plus stores. June'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 once per month. Prices are collected in person or via current weekly online listings (when the store guarantees it honors in-store pricing) and reflect the lowest available price during the tracking week. Prices for June 2026 were collected during the last week of June. Month-over-month figures compare the 19 stores with data in both May and June; Basics Market is excluded from both months following its transition to Market of Choice. 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.

Explore the data.

June was a month where the average barely moved but the extremes told the real story. Five stores — Alberta Co-op, Grocery Outlet, Market of Choice, Natural Grocers, and Zupan's Markets — posted the most expensive basket we've ever recorded for them, while Budget Champions rose sharply and Conventional Contenders actually cooled. Eggs hit a new low, and cheddar came in just above its all-time low. Potatoes hit a new high, and ground beef climbed too, though it's still a hair below November's record. And Basics Market's shift to Market of Choice branding — after 8 months in the tracker under its own name — takes the Portland Price Tracker from 20 stores to 19, a reminder that this dataset changes as the Portland grocery landscape does.

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