We’ve been tracking grocery prices in Chicago: Coffee is up and ground beef, too

For nine months, the Chicago Sun-Times has been tracking the prices of 35 common grocery items at four major Chicago retailers — and the latest news is that prices keep getting higher, with coffee notably higher and ground beef also up.

Our latest price check found a number of items had gone up, causing our shopping basket total to rise at most of the stores.

The total for our basket at Jewel-Osco this month was $276.65, up by $3.30 from July — and up $14.20 since we started tracking prices in December.

At Mariano’s, our total was $270.15, an increase of $3.20 over July.

The bump was smaller at Target, where our $218.25 total was up $1.50 from July.

We’ve also been tracking Walmart Supercenter’s prices but couldn’t make a true comparison because the Walmart in Belmont Cragin that we check monthly didn’t have every item on our list.

Coffee is particularly higher

The item that jumped the most? Coffee. Folgers ground coffee was up $1 at Mariano’s to $8.99 and up $2.50 at Jewel, where it’s also now selling for $8.99.

Coffee prices have been rising for a while. The Labor Department said Tuesday that coffee costs are nearly 15% more than a year earlier, mostly because of troubled harvests overseas. Steep tariffs on goods from Brazil could push costs higher in the coming months. Nearly all U.S. coffee is imported.

This month, the price of 85% lean ground beef rose by 50 cents a pound at Jewel, to a retail price of $7.49, and 30 cents a pound at Target, to $7.99. Ground beef prices continue to climb due to drought, small herd sizes and high feed costs.

Romaine lettuce, baby-cut carrots and yellow onions went up at two of the four stores. Wholesale prices for “fresh and dry vegetables” spiked 38.9% in July, according to a report Thursday from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At Jewel, Chicago’s largest grocery chain, out of the 35 items, four went up in price, and 30 stayed flat, while one declined — Stouffer’s 12-ounce frozen macaroni and cheese, which dropped by 20 cents.