The Pasta Box Costs Seventeen Cents More
Aisle nine, lights down low
0:00 / 3:09
The Pasta Box Costs Seventeen Cents More
This week the lens walks the middle of the store, where nothing needs a cold case: the pantry aisle, boxes and bags stacked four high, no mist, no hum. The track is the channel's usual lo-fi soft-pop lullaby at a slow sway — Rhodes piano, brushed drums, one close and dry-humored vocal — and this week it reads the shelf left to right, without hurrying. The chorus keeps humming everything went up again, and the shelf allows exactly one small dissent: the sugar.
September 2026 is still the newest official month, published October 14; the October reading lands in mid-November. Food at home came in at 321.758, up from August's 321.500 and 1.8% above September 2025. 1 The official categories do not map neatly onto the shelf: pasta and rice are counted inside cereals and bakery products, coffee inside nonalcoholic beverages, and sugar inside other food at home. That last index eased to 282.638 from 283.370 in August, and still sits 4.9 points above a year earlier. 2
The boxes did most of the moving. Spaghetti and macaroni averaged $1.375 a pound in September, a tenth of a cent above August and 17 cents above last September's $1.205, a 14.1% climb in twelve months. 3 Rice came in at $1.118 a pound, up from $1.111 in August and 5.8 cents over a year ago. 4 Sugar went the other way: $1.019 a pound, half a cent under August and 2.3 cents under last September. 5 Coffee, the priciest thing on the shelf, averaged $9.332 a pound — 3.3 cents over August and 19.3 cents over last September, but 39 cents below its April peak of $9.723. 6
The aisle's own index is not the only way to read it. Cereals and bakery products, the group holding the pasta and the rice, rose to 369.585 from 369.171 in August, about 2.1% above a year earlier. 7
The sale cards USDA gathered from 25,521 outlets, dated October 23, 2026, cover advertised prices running October 17 to 29, and they carry no pasta, rice, sugar or coffee rows at all. What they do carry is what goes on top of the box. A dozen large white conventional eggs advertised at $1.34 in 2,026 stores, against $1.26 the week before and $1.64 a year ago, with eggs turning up in 42.1% of those outlets, up from 39.5%. 8 A 6-8 ounce block of natural cheese advertised at $3.97 in 14,840 stores, down 16 cents on the week but $1.11 above last year's $2.86, while the shredded size ran $2.50 and sliced $2.43. 9 Butter, one pound, $3.57 in 11,010 stores: 20 cents cheaper than last week and 42 cheaper than a year ago. USDA counts this week's conventional dairy ads as up 22% from the week before, and puts that jump down to several retailer websites coming back after being unreachable during the previous survey. 9
The anchors kept to their habits. Eggs averaged $2.272 a dozen in September, exactly where August left them, $1.216 under last September. 10 Whole milk averaged $4.106 a gallon, 12.3 cents below August and 2.3 cents under a year ago. 11 White bread sat at $1.830 a pound. 12
So the chorus does what it always does, and this shelf half-agrees with it: the box of pasta climbed 14% in a year while the sugar slipped two cents. Put it on while the water comes up to a boil, while the list gets written, or at bedtime. Everything here is a national average or an advertised price, not a promise about the store on your corner.
References
- 1BLS Consumer Price Index, food at home, series CUUR0000SAF11
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 2BLS Consumer Price Index, other food at home, series CUUR0000SAF115
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 3BLS average price data, spaghetti and macaroni, series APU0000701322
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 4
- 5BLS average price data, sugar, white, all sizes, series APU0000715211
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 6BLS average price data, coffee, 100% ground roast, series APU0000717311
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 7BLS Consumer Price Index, cereals and bakery products, series CUUR0000SAF111
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 8
- 9
- 10BLS average price data, eggs, grade A large, series APU0000708111
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 11BLS average price data, whole milk, series APU0000709112
fred.stlouisfed.org
- 12BLS average price data, white bread, series APU0000702111
fred.stlouisfed.org
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