Mandy Belanger, of Lewiston, could once afford three meals a day for herself, her two children and her mother, but she had to make difficult cuts in recent years while navigating the biggest surge in grocery prices in a half century. 

On weekly trips to a nearby Hannaford, she started buying pork instead of red meat and chicken, and less meat overall, trying to stretch the disability income her family relies on. Belanger said she no longer purchases snack foods. She also buys fewer fruits and vegetables, getting cheaper Hannaford-brand boxed foods instead. But replacing the items in her cart with cheaper alternatives has only done so much. 

Eventually, she had to cut her family’s daily meals from three to two — and her own to one.

“Being the adult in the house, you go without more than you do,” she said on Aug. 26. “I eat one meal a day.”

Grocery prices have grown about 28 percent in the Northeast since 2020, slightly less than the increase seen nationwide. But the average weekly wage in Maine has stayed consistently lower than the national average and has continued to lag behind. In a state where nearly half of residents struggle to pay for basic needs, Mainers are feeling the pinch.

Maine shoppers are avoiding certain foods, traveling farther to buy in bulk and purchasing fewer items overall to save a little money each week. Still, many are finding their dollars are not stretching as far as they used to, and, in many areas of the state, residents do not have the option to shop around. 

National grocery corporations, meanwhile, are maintaining stable or growing profit margins, while food and beverage sales grow each year. 

Hannaford spokesperson Caitlin Cortelyou said it’s important to the company to keep groceries affordable and that Hannaford has made investments in recent years at the majority of its stores to lower prices.

The Maine Monitor also reached out to Costco; BJ’s Wholesale Club; Target; Walmart, which owns Sam’s Club; and Albertsons, which owns Shaw’s. They did not respond to questions about how they have been able to grow sales.

Mainers already experience food insecurity at higher income levels than the national average. An estimated 28 percent of Maine households in 2024 fell under the ALICE threshold, which refers to homes that earn more than the federal poverty level but still cannot afford basic needs in their county. These homes do not qualify for public assistance programs such as food stamps, called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Other homes that used to qualify for government help no longer do. Last month, nearly 22,000 fewer people in Maine received food stamps compared with the same month last year, after President Donald Trump’s signature Big Beautiful Bill restricted who qualified for the program and shifted more costs to states.

For residents such as Belanger, who said she relies on food stamps and whose grocery expenses account for 65 percent of her overall monthly budget, higher grocery prices mean difficult choices.

During the winter, her choice lay between food or heat for her son, 17; her daughter, who is 23 and disabled; and her mother, who lives with them. During this past summer season, she chose between food and personal items such as laundry detergent, cleaning supplies and toothpaste.

“It’s frustrating. It’s unhealthy,” she said.

Changing habits to no avail

Shoppers and local grocery store owners from around the state told The Monitor the same thing: Everything is more expensive now.

General inflation and shocks from the production-side of the grocery market caused both gradual increases and significant price spikes, said Jonathan Malacarne, assistant professor of agricultural economics at the University of Maine.

Although increases driven by industry shocks — such as the avian flu that made the price of eggs jump last year — tend to come back down, prices raised by general inflation do not, he said.

The price of beef in particular has steadily risen as the United States cattle herd has shrunk to the smallest size in 75 years. In Maine supermarkets, shoppers said they are steering clear.

Jordan Sherman, of Portland, regularly shops at the Portland Food Co-op. She now avoids red meat and chicken because of the price, she said, instead getting her protein from other sources such as pork, sausage, beans or tofu.

Sherman has also started going to multiple stores during her weekly shopping runs, she said. She hunts for deals at Hannaford and Trader Joe’s, and goes to the farmer’s market for cheaper, longer-lasting produce. Her budget to eat out at restaurants has shrunk, she said. 

Others, such as Brian Bowler, are traveling farther each month to buy in bulk. 

Bowler, who lives in Harpswell and recently graduated from St. Joseph College, travels an hour each month to shop at Maine’s only Costco in Scarborough. He purchased his membership about a year and a half ago, shortly after the Costco location opened, and said purchasing items in bulk helps him save some money overall.

Still, shoppers are finding their efforts are making little meaningful difference.

Barbie Dow, of Lewiston, expected her weekly grocery spending to slow when the last of her four boys moved away to college. But five years into the empty-nester life with her husband, their grocery bill has remained about the same at $200 to $300 each week, sometimes higher.

“You go from feeding six people, plus all their friends and everybody else coming over, to feeding two, and the price did not hardly move down at all,” Dow said.

“I feel bad when I’m at the grocery store and see people with children,” said Stephanie Fullam, a retired special education teacher. “I look at what they’ve got in her basket, and I think, ‘I don’t know how people can afford it.’”

Fullam, of Augusta, rarely deviates from her shopping list, she said, and purposely shops around to get the best quality for the price. She also makes the hour-long drive to the state’s only Trader Joe’s in Portland and Costco in Scarborough. 

Fullam recalled a three-year stretch in 1978 when her husband was out of work and needed surgery, and money was tight while raising three teenage children. 

“Hamburger was cheap; chicken was cheap,” and “you stretched it,” she said.

“We get by, but, if we were raising the kids now, I don’t know how we would do it,” Fullam said.

Behind store shelves

Local grocers told The Monitor that higher gas prices, which account for 15 to 30 percent of the total cost of food, have been a primary driver of the price increases their customers see.

The price of regular unleaded gas in the Northeast spiked nearly 39 percent since the start of the U.S. war with Iran last February. It’s gone up about 56 percent since 2020. 

To account for higher gas prices, freight companies often charge additional shipping costs on top of their base price. Some local grocers are seeing higher additional costs for every delivery. 

The Portland Food Co-op, which gets about 40 percent of its retail items from within the state, began seeing fuel surcharges from their largest distributors on top of their normal transportation costs about six months ago, around the start of the Iran war, John Crane, the general manager, said. The recent surcharges typically range from an extra $30 to $50, but can be as much as $70.

Harvest Time Natural Foods, a local grocer that has operated in Augusta since 1974, has also seen freight charges increase from a typical $5 to $10 charge per delivery to around $50, said store owner Lewis Purinton.

The latest jump in costs are the largest Purinton has seen since he founded the store 50 years ago, he said.

Lina Raye, a long-time manager at Harvest Time, said the store stopped carrying certain items, such as raw red-skinned peanuts that came from the west or black rice from Minnesota, about a year ago because of shipping costs. 

Because of extra costs absorbed by the store, the price of most retail items at the Portland Co-op have increased, Crane said, particularly coffee. Coffee beans from Equal Exchange Coffee, based in Massachusetts, are now $11.99 per pound. Three years ago, the Portland Food Co-op sold them for about $7.99 per pound. 

To protect customers but still cover his costs and maintain a profit, Crane shifted markup rates among different items and avoided spiking the cost of grocery basics, he said. 

For instance, he has marked up milk, eggs, potatoes and other essentials by about 20 percent; diapers by about 10 percent; and specialty items such as chocolate by about 30 percent or higher.

“That’s really how we look at it, just thinking about the poorest among us — what they actually need and making sure that we’re not applying markups to the staples that people need,” he said.

In addition to stores, Maine farms are also feeling the pain of higher prices for gas, alongside high seed and fertilizer prices, said Serynn Nowlin, a manager at Pine Root Farm in Steep Falls.

At their spot at the Portland Farmers Market in August, Pine Root Farm was the only vendor selling ears of sweet corn. The cost to grow corn each season — taking into account seed, land, water and fertilizer — now outweighs the benefits of selling what once was a lucrative product, Nowlin said.

“Corn used to be more of a cash crop for us, and now it’s like, ‘We have the space to grow it, so we do,’” they said.

In remote areas of the state such as Jackman, customers can’t easily shop around for a better price. 

Some Jackman locals travel 50 miles south to Jimmy’s Market in Bingham or 70 miles to Walmart in Skowhegan. But mostly they rely on the Mountain Country Market, a small grocery store and the only one in Jackman. Food prices there, however, have gone up just as they have everywhere else, said store owner Scott Smith who was raised in Jackman. 

The situation is a delicate one as the Jackman community might not survive without a grocery store, he said.

“Talking about it isn’t going to help,” Smith said. “It’s got to change in our government.”

Grocer giants

At the same time, large grocery corporations are pulling in greater profits each year from grocery sales. U.S. Walmart locations’ net sales for groceries have increased by nearly $100 billion since 2020, a nearly 50-percent increase. 

Data from Macrotrends, a market research firm for investors, shows that major U.S. grocers with a presence in Maine have been able to maintain stable or growing profit margins as cost-drivers continue to worsen. 

Large grocery corporations have advantages over local stores that allow them to better safeguard and generate profits. One such advantage is the capability to sell private labels — products that are sold under a store’s own brand name, such as Walmart’s “Great Value” brand — where stores make more money off each sale than with other products.

Customer attitudes have shifted favorably toward private labels in recent years, which made up about 21 percent of profits from the total U.S. market sales last year, according to the Private Label Manufacturers Association. In food and beverage aisles, private label sales accrued nearly a quarter of all sales, according to the market analytics firm Circana.

For Hannaford, one of the most prominent grocery store chains in the state, private-brand sales are an important part of business, Cortelyou said. 

Lately the company has seen “robust private brand growth” in fresh items such as chicken and broccoli, alongside other staples such as frozen pizza and canned beans, she said.

Large grocery store companies also proved during the pandemic they are better able to protect their supply chains amid disruptions because they have stronger negotiation standing than local stores. 

The surge in grocery food prices shows no signs of slowing, according to reporting by Axios, which cited numbers from J.P. Morgan. The company projected that food prices will stay elevated, with the inflation rate accelerating from 2.8 percent earlier this year to 5 percent in the first half of next year.

In the long run, companies may be reluctant to lower prices even if the drivers of grocery costs come down, said Malacarne, of the University of Maine.

“If consumers are used to paying a certain price, the sellers have little incentive to lower that price unless they face significant competition,” he said.

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit civic news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.