Food prices are higher now compared to a few years ago thanks to inflation. Higher food prices, though, are masking an underlying trend of consumers spending more on food in real terms. The USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) says total per person food spending, when adjusted for inflation, was 6.3 percent higher in 2022 compared to 2019. And food spending in real terms increased 70 percent between 1997-2022.
Consumers’ growing propensity to purchase food-away-from-home is one reason spending on food has increased. Spending on food-away-from-home increased 89 percent since 1997. In fact, spending on food-away-from-home accounted for 59 percent of all food expenditures in 2022, the highest recorded since the ERS began tracking it. Consumers in Nebraska have increased food spending too, but not as much as seen nationally.
Since 1997, inflation-adjusted per capita food spending in Nebraska increased 40 percent, or 1.6 percent per year on average. In 2022, per capita annual food spending was just over $2,400 (Figure 3). States with the largest increases in per capita food spending between 2019-2022 were concentrated in the West with Nevada (16.3 percent), Wyoming (15.5 percent), and Arizona (13.9 percent) leading the way.
Nebraska’s increase was near 12 percent (Figure 4). Not all states saw food spending rise. Food spending in Washington, D.C., declined 12.9 percent driven by less spending on food-away-from-home. Visitors to the nation’s capital plummeted during the pandemic and business at restaurants suffered as a result. Other states which saw declines in food spending were located in the Northeast.
FIGURE 3. INFLATION-ADJUSTED PER CAPITA FOOD SALES IN NEBRASKA
Source: USDA Economic Research Service
FIGURE 4. PERCENT CHANGE IN INFLATION-ADJUSTED PER CAPITA FOOD SPENDING, 2022 VS. 2019
Source: USDA Economic Research Service
