American Shoppers Finally Reopen Their Pocketbooks For Groceries, Especially Meat

• Fourth annual report also finds that the average weekly spend has increased, while online grocery shopping is nearing pandemic levels of popularity once more
• Despite potential FDA changes to nutritional labels, data finds even more Americans are now ignoring food labels 

It appears that inflation’s grip over what Americans put into their grocery baskets has finally loosened, according to a new research report released today. 

Attest, a leading consumer research platform finds that only a third (33%) of shoppers are buying cheaper food to curb their grocery spending. This represents a 12 percentage point decline since 2022, suggesting shoppers are becoming much less thrifty as food inflation has eased up. Likewise, this year sees a significant reduction in consumers admitting they are trying to buy less food, at 26% (versus 40% in 2022). 

In tandem with these findings, the data also highlights that meat, a high-price point food product, is back on the dinner table for many Americans. Attest’s report in 2021 found that 36% of consumers had reduced their consumption of meat during the depths of the onset of inflation. Today, that figure has declined to 20%, suggesting that as inflation has lessened, consumers are willing to splurge on meat once more. 

The data delves into consumers’ changing tastes and priorities and Attest’s 2025 US food & beverage trends report surveyed 2,000 nationally representative US consumers further revealing:

• Shift in consumer priorities - cost is now most important: Back in 2021, food safety was top of mind for Americans out of all topics related to grocery shopping. In a direct reversal, this has now been firmly replaced by the issue of cost, at 38%, followed by food safety at 14% (which dropped by 16 percentage points from 2021).  
• Online grocery shopping is rebounding to near pandemic levels: The pandemic saw the popularity of online grocery shopping spike, then face a steep decline once stores reopened to regular hours and removed restrictions. The report finds that online grocery shopping is trending upwards again (at 62%, compared to 2021’s peak of 67%). In fact, there has been a reduction of die-hard in-store-only shoppers (to 38%) since 2022 (at 50%). Meanwhile, a quarter (25%) evenly split shopping between in-store and online. 
• The average grocery spend has increased: Perhaps unsurprisingly since last year’s report, Americans report that their grocery spend has increased, with a majority (57%) spending in excess of $100 per week. Meanwhile, the lowest-spending consumers have been squeezed the most, with the percentage who previously spent $10-$50 per week on food declining to 10%: this would suggest consumers are no longer able to feed themselves on this amount.
• Walmart is America’s supermarket: Walmart dominates on customer loyalty with nearly half (48%) of consumers saying it is their favorite place to grocery shop (a 5 percentage point increase), followed distantly by Kroger (10%), Aldi (8%), Costco (6%) and Target (4%). 
• The private label boom appears to be over: In line with stabilizing food prices, the opportunity for private label brands is starting to decline. While consumers remain overwhelmingly likely to purchase supermarket-branded goods (81%), the percentage who state they are “very likely” to purchase them has declined to 46% (a drop of 12 percentage points from just a year ago). 
• By contrast, the Sober Curious movement appears to have staying power: One trend that appears to be here to stay is Americans’ increased wish to drink less alcohol. Since 2021, the number of Americans who drink at least once a week has declined to 28% (a drop of 4 percentage points). In fact, now 24% of consumers describe themselves as “teetotal”. Yet the consumption of low and alcohol-free beers, wines and spirits is failing to keep pace with the trend: 13% of consumers purchase them (a decline from 2021’s 14%).
• There’s been an increase in consumers ignoring nutrition labels: This year’s report shows that a third (33%) of shoppers nearly never check food labeling (an increase of 8 percentage points from 2023). It comes at a time when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering a requirement to put nutrition details on the front of packaging.
• Home cooking heats up, with consumers wanting to buy in-season produce: The data finds consumers are eating home-cooked meals more often compared with last year. Overall, 62% say they eat their own cooked meals between 3-5 days a week. In addition, the number of Americans specifically seeking out in-season produce for home cooking has risen from 43% to 48%.