Grocery Prices Keep Rising due to Tariffs, War in Iran

Reporting live from Year 2, Trump II. While the president’s pet conflict with Iran chokes the Strait of Hormuz, grocery prices here continue to climb. As of Memorial Day 2026, the price of generic cheddar cheese is up 5%. Lettuce is up 7.5%. Your average tomato costs 50% more than it did a year ago, and ground beef is 18.9% more expensive. A simple cup of coffee sells for 29% more. Meanwhile, minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, like it was when this editor started working 20 years ago. For many people, it still takes over an hours’ work to afford some Hamburger Helper. 

And that's fucked up.

Realistically, not everything can be pinned on Trump’s meddling in the Middle East. Some spikes in pricing are traceable to natural causes. For instance, that surge in egg prices in 2025 resulted from a widespread outbreak of avian influenza. More recently, heavy rains and flooding in South America impacted its coffee industry. Freezing weather in Mexico, leading supplier of tomatoes to the United States, shrank the season’s yield. Tomatoes were already subject to a price hike of 17% in response to Trump’s tariffs. 

It was inevitable. Between all these obstacles, humanity’s dependence on culinary commodities, and resistance to substitution whatever the cost (inelastic demand for you nerds), a treacherous triangle was bound to emerge. Nature’s most stable shape now holds consumers hostage as it seems neither Trump, Iran, nor the weather will cooperate. The pressure, and the prices, have no place to go but up. 

Some kitchen staples on the other hand have seen a drop in selling price. The price of eggs fell 56%, back to prices considered affordable ($3.99/12-pk at Trader Joe’s). Butter doesn’t cost as much (down 12%) and good ole-fashioned American cheese has decreased in price by 6%. And bacon, official mascot of the late 2010s, is 2.6% cheaper now. However, an April 2026 report by BLS indicates a 2.9% year-over-year increase in “eating at home” amid a 3.8% inflation rate. 

That said, Trump’s tariffs continue driving up the price of foods imported internationally. Even the cost of food packaging is up—a direct result of his 50% tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum. But perhaps most obvious are the soaring fuel and energy costs, which affect every stage of the consumer supply chain. Transport, freezing and refrigeration, and transfer expends remarkable amounts of energy. That cost gets bumped to the price of goods, and we pay for it over and over. The fuel we use to work, travel, and shop is the same fuel required to ship, fly, and truck produce to your local grocery store. 

UC Davis Professor of Agricultural Economics Dr. Daniel Sumner expressed concern to the San Francisco Chronicle about the microcosmic intricacies of this crisis. Fertilizer, among other raw materials essential to sowing American crops, cannot pass through the still-blockaded Strait of Hormuz. When this was written, much of the produce at our grocery stores came from harvests fertilized before the war. Those providers now depend on their own supply of fertilizer, and once they run dry, the blockade could still be in effect. 

Trump was never a good businessman, as every industry he touches turns to shit. To him, being president seems to have only ever been about maximizing his cons and legal immunity. Will the industries propping up the United States’ supermarket model withstand the shakedown? If prices continue trending upward, it doesn’t seem likely. In short, it’s never been a better time to shop for veggies and produce at your local farmer’s market.