Walk into a Walmart this summer and you might notice something unusual. Beef, ice cream, and a range of other staples are cheaper than they were a few months ago. Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ: WMT) recently trimmed prices on those items, along with products from The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) and its own Great Value private label line. The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) has leaned into similar value focused promotions. Neither company is doing this out of generosity. Shoppers are quietly cutting back, and grocers are racing to keep them from leaving.
That retreat shows up clearly in survey data. Bain & Company’s U.S. Consumer Pulse Wave, conducted in May, found that 80% of Americans are still trying to spend less overall, and 28% say they are specifically cutting grocery spending. Among that group, more than half are trading down to cheaper brands, close to half are simply buying fewer items each trip, and a similar share are relying more on coupons and promotions.
The underlying numbers, drawn from NielsenIQ data and analyzed by Bain for CNBC, explain why grocers feel the urgency. Grocery units, meaning the individual products people place in their carts, fell 1.8% in June compared to a year earlier. That marks a sharp reversal from June 2025, when unit sales were still edging upward. Prices, meanwhile, have kept rising between 2% and 3% year over year, but that inflation cushion is no longer enough to keep total sales growing.
Kurt Grichel, who leads Bain’s Americas retail practice, frames the shift in terms shoppers feel directly. A grocery stock up trip that cost $300 in 2019 now runs closer to $400. Even higher income households notice a gap that size, and once they notice, they start comparing prices across stores.
Several forces have converged to produce that sticker shock. Grocery prices are roughly 33% higher than they were in 2019, according to federal data. Gasoline costs have also climbed sharply this year, leaving families with less room in their budgets for everything else. Cuts to SNAP benefits and tighter eligibility rules have added further strain, particularly for lower income households that rely on the program.
Food and beverage companies are already feeling the effects. PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ: PEP) reported that North American food revenue fell 2% in its second quarter, with volume essentially flat. Chief Executive Ramon Laguarta told investors the consumer environment looks worse than the company had anticipated, pointing largely to gas prices as the driver. PepsiCo has also increased promotional activity, effectively lowering prices to hold onto price sensitive customers.
Joe Feldman, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, said this dynamic is playing out across the supply chain. Grocers have been pushing suppliers to bring costs down, and suppliers largely recognize the need to cooperate. The goal industrywide, he said, is to rebuild growth in the number of items sold rather than relying on higher prices alone.
Grichel expects that focus to sharpen further. Grocers that price aggressively on the items shoppers notice most, staples like ground beef, chicken, milk, and eggs, tend to hold customer trust even when budgets tighten. Layering in loyalty programs, personalization, and private label options, he said, is how grocers stitch together a value proposition shoppers can actually believe.
