May marked the 10th consecutive month of the Portland Price Tracker, and was a month defined less by how much the overall average moved and more by which items moved — and how persistently they've been moving in one direction. Across the 20 stores tracked by Stumptown Savings each month since August 2025, the average 20-item basket rose $2.45, or 2.6%, from April to May 2026, climbing from $93.33 to $95.78. That erases the modest April improvement and pushes the tracker back near its February levels.

But the headline this month isn't the average. It's that whole milk and apples both hit their highest average tracked prices in 10 months of data — simultaneously. Canned tuna quietly joined them.

Conventional Contenders — Albertsons, Fred Meyer, QFC, Safeway, and Trader Joe's — rose 4.9% on average, the group's largest increase since February. Albertsons (+$5.97, +9.0%) led the way, driven by whole milk and produce price increases.

Budget Champions — Costco, Grocery Outlet, Walmart, and WinCo — swung in opposite directions, leaving the group down 2.0% overall. Grocery Outlet dropped $12.02 (−17.9%), reflecting a strong sale week. WinCo rose $4.73 (+9.7%) — its largest single-month move since we started tracking. More on that below.

Premium Grocers — Basics Market, Chuck's Fresh Markets, Market of Choice, New Seasons, Roth's Fresh Markets, Whole Foods, and Zupan's Markets — rose 2.2% on average, though the group split sharply. New Seasons jumped $8.88 (+9.0%), finishing at $107.96. Roth's moved the other direction, dropping $11.38 (−13.6%) off a strong sale week.

Specialty & Co-ops — Alberta Co-op, Barbur World Foods, Natural Grocers, and People's Food Co-op — rose 3.7% on average. Alberta Co-op posted the month's largest single-store dollar increase: +$16.40 (+10.7%), spread across sugar, milk, and organic produce.

Whole milk hit a 10-month high — rising from $5.09/gallon in April to $5.70 in May, a 12% jump that was broad-based across the market. Fred Meyer, Safeway, and WinCo all moved. The average whole milk price was $5.06 when we started tracking in August 2025 — it dipped through winter, held through spring, and has now pushed well above where it began.

Apples also hit a 10-month high — climbing from $1.73/lb. to $1.97/lb., up nearly 14% in a month. This is typical late-spring behavior: storage apples from last fall are running thin and the new crop isn't ready until late summer. Prices usually narrow by July or August.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts rose sharply — averaging $6.41/lb. across tracked stores, up 5.6% from April's $6.07. May's figure is the second-highest we've recorded in 10 months of tracking, behind only December 2025's $6.46. It's worth noting that what "boneless, skinless chicken breasts" means varies significantly by store — value packs at discount retailers versus premium free-range products at specialty stores. That context matters when comparing across our store groups.

Canned tuna also reached a 10-month high at $1.99 average. It's a smaller line item, but tuna is one of the products most exposed to import cost pressure, and it's been drifting up quietly since February.

Russet potatoes dropped 8.7% — from $4.72 to $4.31 per 5-lb. bag. Albertsons had them at $2.50, WinCo at $1.48.

Eggs continued their slow descent, falling from $3.54 to $3.31 on average. Grocery Outlet still had them at $0.99; Walmart at $1.47. Eggs have now fallen more than 26% since August 2025 — the single largest item-level move in the dataset, and it's downward.

Ground coffee was essentially flat for the second month in a row, edging from $10.73 to $10.71. Given how much attention we've paid to tariff pass-through risk on coffee, two consecutive months of stability is worth noting — even if it's not yet a trend.

Grocery Outlet's −$12.02 price drop ranks among the largest single-store month-over-month decreases in our dataset. That's the inventory-driven model at work — May happened to be a very strong week. Their basket has ranged from $55.19 to $67.21 in just the past two months, which tells you everything about how to think about shopping there.

WinCo's +$4.73 is its largest single-month move since tracking began. Some of it is April's sale price on ground beef unwinding back to normal. But romaine and milk both moved too, and those aren't flukes. WinCo is still the cheapest store in the tracker by a significant margin — but it's worth watching whether May is an outlier or a new baseline.

A note on Alberta Co-op's sugar: We track Organic Wholesome Sweeteners cane sugar there, sold in 1-lb. bags that we standardize to a 4-lb. equivalent. At $23.96, it significantly inflates their basket total compared to what you'd pay for conventional sugar elsewhere — or even organic sugar from Alberta Co-op's own bulk bins. We track prepackaged options consistently across all stores to keep comparisons fair, but it's worth knowing when you see that number.

This month we made significant updates to the Portland Price Tracker interactive database at data.stumptownsavings.com — and it's worth a look even if you've visited before.

The database now includes a store map showing every location we track across the Portland metro, so you can see at a glance which stores are near you. We also redesigned the store leaderboard — the ranked list of all 20 stores by basket total is now much easier to scan, with color-coded group indicators and a visual bar for each store. And of course, May's data is now live, bringing the full dataset to 10 months of Portland-specific price tracking.

You can filter by store, filter by item, and see exactly where each item costs least right now. It's free (for now) and updated every month.

The Portland Price Tracker tracks a fixed basket of 20 commonly purchased grocery items at Portland-area stores once per month. Prices are collected in person or via current weekly online listings (when the store guarantees in-store pricing matches) and reflect the lowest available price during the tracking week. Prices for May 2026 were collected on Thursday, May 21, 2026. Month-over-month figures compare all stores with data in both months. 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.

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