Skip to main content
Skip to main content

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Fruit and Vegetable Prices - Documentation

Overview

USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) has estimated average costs for over 150 fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, using 2013, 2016, 2020, 2022, and 2023 retail scanner data from Circana. A selection of retail establishments across the United States provides Circana with weekly retail sales data (revenue and quantity). These retail establishments include grocery stores, supermarkets, supercenters, convenience stores, drug stores, and liquor stores.

This data product assesses the costs for a U.S. household to eat a sufficient quantity and variety of fruits and vegetables. The data should not be used for making inferences about price changes over time. Although ERS researchers priced similar fruit and vegetable products for a year, year-to-year differences may arise because they used different methods for coding the underlying Circana data, new products entered the market, and old products exited the market, among other factors.

ERS estimated the average retail per-pound price (or per-pint price for juices) of each product. To estimate the cost of consuming each food, ERS researchers then adjusted retail quantities for the removal of inedible parts and cooking loss which occur before eating. Costs to consume foods were then estimated per edible cup equivalent as defined in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  

An edible cup equivalent is the unit of measurement used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services to report fruit and vegetable consumption recommendations. This measure differs from other government data sets, such as the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Average Price Data that report prices for selected foods "as purchased." For example, BLS reports national average dollars-per-pound retail prices for lettuce and oranges. For most fruits and vegetables, a cup equivalent is the edible portion that will fit into a 1-cup measuring cup; for raisins and other dried fruit, it is the edible portion that will fit into a 1/2-cup; and for leafy vegetables, 2 cups.

Scope/Coverage of Data

Fruit and Vegetable Prices uses U.S. annual, national-average prices to examine cost to buy and consume over 150 products. Many of the most popular fruits and vegetables are included with some notable exclusions. First, fruits or vegetables with atypical conversion factors are excluded. The reported price for fresh peaches, for example, excludes donut peaches. The conversion factors used by ERS researchers to estimate the amount of edible fruit in a peach may not apply to this particular type of peach. The inedible seed may account for a different share of a donut peach’s retail weight than it does a regular peach’s retail weight. Donut peaches may also cost more money per pound than regular peaches. Second, organic products are also excluded from the analysis.  

Average prices also do not reflect what a particular household would pay for a particular product in a particular store. Averages vary across locations and over seasons.  

Data Sources

Circana - A panel of retail stores across the United States provide Circana with a record of their weekly food purchase transactions. A subset of these stores agree to let Circana release their information to USDA. This panel includes supercenters, club warehouses, grocery stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, and drugstores, among others. Circana OmniMarket Core Outlets data include information about the physical quantity and dollar value of retailers’ sales. 

USDA – For conversion factors and cup equivalent weights, ERS relies on data published by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Specific sources include the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Legacy Release (SR; in FoodData Central); the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS; in FoodData Central); Agriculture Handbook No. 102, Food Yields Summarized by Different Stages of Preparation 1975 (AH102); and the Food Pattern Equivalents Database (FPED).

Methods

Selecting Fruits and Vegetables to Price

A wide variety of fruits and vegetables are available at retail stores across the United States. ERS selected and priced various types of fruits and vegetables in fresh and processed forms. Foods identified for pricing are very specific products and include fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as fruit juices, and processed fruits and vegetables (canned, frozen, or dried products). For example, apples include fresh apples and applesauce. Apples are also priced in two juice forms: ready-to-drink and frozen concentrate that must be reconstituted at home.

ERS researchers excluded organic products from the analysis. Thus, price estimates are for conventionally produced food only.

Estimating the Price of Buying Selected Foods at Retail

The next step in ERS's analysis was to estimate each food’s average retail price. Using 2013, 2016, 2020, 2022, and 2023 data, researchers estimated total sales for a sample of stores providing information to Circana for its OmniMarket Core Outlets data product. Sales were calculated by weight and by dollars, aggregating across all stores in the sample. Average retail prices per pound or per pint were then estimated for all products as the ratio of aggregated sales in dollars to aggregated sales by weight.

Although the estimate of total sales for each food item by dollars is fairly straightforward, estimating total sales by weight is more complicated. Fruits and vegetables are sold primarily by the pound or ounce. For example, whole fresh carrots are typically sold in bags weighing 1, 2, or 5 pounds. However, some other types of produce, such as melons, pineapples, and lettuce are more commonly priced per piece of fruit or per head of lettuce. For retail items sold this way, it is necessary to convert dollars per unit to dollars per pound, using a numeric conversion factor. For example, an assumption is made about the average weight in pounds of a typical melon, a typical pineapple, and a typical head of lettuce.

Retail price estimates calculated by ERS are very broad averages. Costs are defined as the average prices paid by all U.S. households for a food product over a year, including purchases in different package sizes, under different brand names, and at different types of retail outlets. Of course, prices do vary seasonally, and annual averages may disproportionately reflect in-season prices in some cases. Retail food prices can also vary between supercenters, supermarkets, wholesale club stores, and convenience stores, among other retail formats.   

Estimating the Costs to Consume Fruits and Vegetables

The final step in the analysis was to estimate a household’s costs for consuming fruits and vegetables per edible cup equivalent. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans states fruit and vegetable consumption recommendations in cup equivalents. For most fruits and vegetables, a cup equivalent is the amount of the edible portion of a fruit or vegetable (e.g., minus pits or peels) that will fit in a standard 1-cup measuring cup. But not always. Some foods are more concentrated, and some are airier or contain more water. A cup equivalent for lettuce and other raw leafy vegetables is 2 cups; for raisins and other dried fruits, it is a 1/2 cup.

The USDA Food Pattern Equivalents Database (FPED) reports the weight in grams of a cup equivalent of different fruits and vegetables. One cup equivalent of cooked whole kernel corn weighs 165 grams whether from a fresh, frozen, or canned product whereas one cup equivalent of fresh raw apple with skin weighs 110 grams.

Costs to consume foods per edible cup equivalent were calculated by adjusting retail prices for the removal of inedible parts and cooking loss that occur prior to consumption. For example, 1 pound of store-bought fresh pineapple yields 0.51 pounds of edible fruit after the removal of the core, crown, and scraps. Frozen spinach also loses weight when cooked. Preparing a 10-ounce package yields 220 grams of cooked vegetable.

Data on cooking yields, edible shares, and inedible shares of fruits and vegetables are from the USDA, ARS’ SR, FNNDS, and/or AH102. If weight is lost in preparation, ERS defines a food's retail-equivalent weight as:

Retail-equivalent weight = weight of a cup equivalent / (1 - share lost)

where shares are expressed as fractions. For example, USDA, ARS’ SR reports that 10 percent of a fresh apple is inedible, implying a preparation yield of 90 percent. FPED lists the weight of a 1-cup equivalent of raw apple with skin at 110 grams. To eat a 1-cup equivalent, households must therefore buy 110/0.9 = 122.22 grams of whole fresh apples. In contrast, if weight is gained in preparation, a food item's retail-equivalent weight is defined as:

Retail-equivalent weight = weight of a cup equivalent / (1 + share gained)

where shares are again expressed as fractions. USDA, ARS’ FNDDS reports that one pound of dry beans weighs 2.469 pounds after cooking. The cooked product’s weight is the weight of the dry beans prior to cooking plus 146.9 percent that is added during preparation. The FPED further lists the weight of a 1-cup equivalent of cooked pinto beans at 175 grams. Households must therefore buy 175/2.469 = 70.88 grams of dry pinto beans at a retail store to eat a 1-cup equivalent at home.

Because cup equivalent weights are in grams, it was necessary to convert earlier estimates of retail prices from dollars-per-pound to dollars-per-gram (by dividing by 453.59), and calculate the cost to eat a cup equivalent of a food item as:

Price per cup equivalent = (average retail price per gram) x (retail-equivalent weight in grams).

Both preparation yield factors and cup-equivalent weights are different for each product. ERS' specific formula for each fruit and vegetable is displayed in the Excel data tables.

Data Changes

When generating estimates using 2013, 2016, 2020, 2022, and 2023 data, ERS researchers priced similar fruit and vegetable products. However, important differences exist. Researchers used different methods for coding the underlying Circana data, new products entered the market, and old products exited the market, among other factors. These data are not suitable for making year-to-year comparisons. They should not be used for making inferences about price changes over time.

Limitations

There are a few known sources of error in Fruit and Vegetable Prices including the choice of conversion factors and issues with the scanner data.

  1. Retail items may require preparation before being consumed. Products may need to be cooked and/or inedible parts removed. Estimates of a product’s inedible share and the amount of weight gained or lost through cooking are based on samples of products. These amounts vary and will be different for specific products bought by a household (e.g., the amount of inedible core in an apple will vary across different pieces of fruit).
  2. Stores that participate in Circana’s retail panel may not be representative of the national composition of stores.
  3. Prices used to calculate statistics are annual, national averages and do not represent the prices a consumer would pay or a farmer would receive in a given locality, at a certain time, or for a specific brand and package size of the food item.
  4. Estimates based on 2013, 2016, 2020, 2022, and 2023 data should not be used for making inferences about price changes over time. Several factors make the data unsuitable for this purpose such as the entry of new products into the market and the exit of old products from the market.  
  5. Many of the farm and retail price data used to calculate statistics do not include accuracy measures. ERS is unable to provide confidence intervals for these statistics.

ERS’ Purchase to Plate Suite (PP-Suite) provides additional data on food costs. The PP-Suite reports a U.S. household’s costs to consume other categories of foods in addition to fruits and vegetables, such as meats, seafood, and cereal and bakery products. Food groupings in the PP-Suite are based on USDA, ARS’ Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS). This allows users to import price estimates for foods found in USDA dietary survey data. USDA, ARS’ FNDDS food groupings are broader than the specific food products priced for constructing this data product. They also include both conventional and organic products. For example, the PP-Suite average price to consume broccoli purchased raw is the average price paid for organic and conventional heads, crowns, and florets. By contrast, this data product distinguishes and separately reports the average costs to consume conventional raw broccoli purchased as heads and florets.

ERS’ Food-at-Home Monthly Area Prices (F-MAP) supplies monthly food price data over time, across food groupings, and across geographic areas. This data product includes monthly prices for 90 food-at-home categories across 15 geographic areas of the United States. Price measures include: (1) a mean unit value price and (2) a price index. The mean unit value is a per quantity price, where quantity is measured by weight in grams. Price indexes are a unitless measure of the cost of a basket of goods and are used to measure price changes over time.

ERS’ Food Price Outlook (FPO) presents data on retail food price trends. FPO provides food price data and forecasts changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) for food.

Recommended citation

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. (2025). Fruit and Vegetable Prices.