It has not been a pretty summer for consumers at California’s supermarkets.

That’s what my trusty spreadsheet found when averaging slices of Consumer Price Indexes for three Golden State metro areas: the Los Angeles/Orange County combo , San Francisco and San Diego .

This summer’s pricing – June through August’s reports – shows that prices in the “food at home” category across those three metros grew at an average 3.3% annual rate this summer. So, grocery inflation more than doubled from 1.5% in 2024.

Yes, food at home inflation is nowhere near the pandemic era’s inflation surge that saw grocery prices balloon at a 6.4% average annual rate in 2021-23. Nevertheless, mid-year 2025’s California grocery inflation is running faster than the overall cost of living.

The overall Consumer

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