The States Where Groceries Cost the Most, Ranked. See Where Texas Lands

A $500 grocery budget doesn’t buy the same amount of food in every state.

In the most expensive state, a comparable cart can cost nearly $200 more than it does in Texas.

This national ranking reveals where shoppers pay the most and why Texas lands much closer to the bargain end.

Designing the Study

These rankings come from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center’s Cost of Living Index, updated every quarter from prices collected in cities across the country.

Every state gets a grocery score measured against a national average of 100.

A score of 110 means groceries cost 10% more than typical.

A score of 90 means they cost 10% less.

Hawaii

Hawaii tops the list with a grocery score of 136.3, the highest grocery prices of any state in the country.

Almost everything on a Hawaii grocery shelf arrives by ship or plane.

A federal law called the Jones Act adds another layer of cost. It requires goods moving between U.S. ports to travel on U.S.-built, U.S.-crewed ships.

A 2020 study from the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii put the Jones Act’s cost to the average Hawaii family at almost $1,800 a year.

That adds up.

Hawaii’s own food-assistance benefits run higher too, to help offset those elevated costs.

Typical monthly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in Hawaii run as high as $362 per person, among the highest of any state.

Alaska

Distance decides how much Alaska pays for groceries.

Alaska’s grocery score of 126.6, the No. 2 spot on the index, puts the state about 27% above the national average.

Many Alaska communities sit off the road system entirely, so groceries travel in by barge, cargo plane, or the state’s Bypass Mail program, which flies food directly to rural villages.

In some of those villages, a shopping trip can run 80% higher than the same trip in Anchorage.

Bad weather compounds the problem: Winter storms can ground flights and delay barges for weeks, leaving some village stores without basics like bread and milk until the next delivery lands.

Anchorage and Juneau see milder prices than the villages, but both still land above the Lower 48 average.

California

At No. 3, California’s grocery score of 110.5 puts its prices about 11% above the national average.

High costs touch nearly everything across California, from commercial rent to warehouse wages, and grocery stores pass a share of that overhead straight to the shelf.

California still grows a huge share of the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables, including most of its almonds and walnuts.

Farmland doesn’t erase rent.

A trendy grocery scene adds to the price tag, too.

Stores like Erewhon sell pricey pasture-raised eggs and celebrity-branded smoothies, and shoppers pay a premium for them.

Maryland

Maryland comes in fourth, with a grocery score of 109.3 running about 9% above the national average.

Much of the state sits inside the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metro areas, where commercial rent and retail wages run high.

Grocers pay more to keep the lights on and the shelves stocked, and that shows up at checkout.

Maryland’s food banks have felt the squeeze from the other direction.

The Maryland Food Bank reported a 20% jump in food distributed compared with before the pandemic, even as grocery prices kept rising.

That’s a lot of strain.

New Jersey

Fifth place belongs to New Jersey, where a grocery score of 109.1 sits about 9% above the national average.

New Jersey’s dense population and its spot between New York City and Philadelphia keep commercial real estate costs high across the state.

Stores pass that overhead on to shoppers.

New Jersey does offer one break, though.

Like Texas, the state charges no sales tax on most grocery items, which keeps the register total closer to the shelf price.

Every dollar counts.

Prepared and restaurant food is a different story, since New Jersey taxes that at its standard rate.

Massachusetts

Boston’s tight housing market and high wages ripple into every other cost of living.

Massachusetts’s grocery score of 106.8, the No. 6 spot on the index, puts prices about 7% above the national average.

Massachusetts shoppers spend a smaller share of their paycheck on groceries than any other state, just 6.7%.

That’s a function of the state’s outsized incomes, not a cheaper grocery bill.

Massachusetts carries one of the highest median incomes in the country, and the grocery bill in raw dollars still runs higher than in most states.

Washington

Washington ranks seventh, its grocery score of 106.1 running about 6% above the national average.

Supply chain costs and a high overall cost of living both push prices up across the state.

Washington shoppers have felt that squeeze directly.

A statewide food security survey found that 78% of Washington households noticed grocery prices rising, with red meat, chicken, and fresh fruit drawing the most concern over affordability.

Locals found workarounds.

Programs like Eat Local First connect Washington shoppers with nearby farm stands and markets, which can undercut supermarket prices on produce, seafood, and coffee.

Connecticut

Connecticut sits just behind Washington at No. 8, with a grocery score of 106.0, also about 6% above the national average.

The state sits between Boston and New York City, and both cities pull commercial rents and grocery wages up across the whole region.

State regulators took notice of the high prices, too.

Connecticut’s attorney general opened an investigation into whether grocery prices amounted to price gouging.

Investigators found no evidence of illegal gouging at the store level.

No smoking gun.

They did find grocers facing the same cost pressures squeezing shoppers.

Florida

No. 9 on the list is Florida, where a grocery score of 105.7 lands about 6% above the national average.

The state imports much of what lands on its shelves, since Florida’s growing season and crop mix don’t cover everything a modern grocery list needs.

Insurance adds another cost layer that shoppers often miss.

Florida’s property insurance crisis has pushed operating costs up for grocery stores, not just homeowners.

Grocery prices in South Florida rose more than 4% over one recent year, with meat and egg prices up 14%.

Not everything went up, though.

Milk, fruit, and vegetable prices in Florida fell over that same stretch.

Oregon

The Pacific Northwest carries a high cost of living overall, and Oregon’s grocery bills track right along with it.

Oregon’s grocery score of 104.5 rounds out the top ten at No. 10, sitting about 5% above the national average.

Distribution adds extra weight to the total, too, since much of the state’s population sits west of the Cascades while a lot of farmland sits to the east.

Portland grocers also compete for workers who expect wages to match one of the priciest housing markets on the West Coast.

Employers end up raising pay just to help workers keep up with rent.

Where Texas Lands

Texas lands at No. 41 out of 50 states on the same index, with a grocery score of 95.9, about 4% below the national average.

That makes Texas one of the ten cheapest states in the country to buy groceries.

Two things help keep it that way.

Texas has more working farms and ranches than any other state, over 230,000 of them according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which shortens the distance between where food grows and where it’s sold.

Texas also doesn’t tax groceries.

Basic food items are tax-exempt under state law, unlike prepared or restaurant food, which keeps the register total closer to the shelf price.

Texas isn’t the single cheapest state on the list, though.

Nine states score even lower, from Tennessee down to Mississippi at the bottom.

The full gap between Texas and the cheapest state on the index runs about 3 percentage points.

Rankings Shift Every Quarter

MERIC updates this index four times a year, so a state’s grocery score moves as prices, harvests, and shipping costs change.

Tennessee shows how fast that shift can happen.

Household grocery spending in Tennessee jumped 37% between 2019 and 2024, the sharpest five-year rise of any state, according to ConsumerAffairs’ analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

That’s a steep rise.

Tennessee sat below the national average as recently as 2019.