Nowflation’s food gauge reads 2.77% year over year as of September 8, 2026 (0.000pp on the day, 0.000pp on the week, −0.050pp on the month; level 139.112, January 2018 = 100). The official BLS CPI food (all) was 3.0% for July 2026, released August 12, 2026 — a gap of −0.23pp today, −0.13pp like for like (the gauge’s July 2026 average against that print). The category carries 13.7% of the CPI basket; 0% of that weight is priced from live sources today. Next print: August 2026 CPI on September 11, 2026 at 8:30 AM ET. A measurement, not a forecast.
| Component | Basket weight | YoY | Contribution to the category | Feed today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food at Home | 8.3% | 2.61% | +1.59pp | OFFICIAL — CUSR0000SAF11 (official subindex, held between prints) |
| Food Away | 5.4% | 3.40% | +1.33pp | OFFICIAL — CUSR0000SEFV (official subindex, held between prints) |
Nowflation’s food gauge reads 2.77% year over year as of September 8, 2026, measured daily on the CPI basket weights (13.7% of the basket). The official BLS CPI food (all) was 3.0% for July 2026, released August 12, 2026.
Today’s reading is −0.23pp versus the last print. No component in this category has a live daily source, so between prints it holds the official subindexes and the difference is the calendar: the daily reading has moved on to this month, the print is for July 2026. Like for like — the gauge’s average over July 2026 against that print — the gap was −0.13pp.
The August 2026 CPI prints on September 11, 2026 at 8:30 AM ET; this page steps to it the same morning.
Weight-normalised average of the member components’ daily index levels (Jan 2018 = 100), on the BLS relative-importance weights for the year — the same Laspeyres-style aggregation the headline Gauge uses; YoY is the level against the same calendar day a year earlier. Food at home holds the official CPI food-at-home subindex between prints (a USDA advertised-price composite is ingested as a diagnostic but not spliced — it failed the r ≥ 0.7 bar); food away from home holds its official subindex. Both step on the BLS release calendar.
Weight-normalised average of the member components’ daily index levels (Jan 2018 = 100), on the BLS relative-importance weights for the year — the same Laspeyres-style aggregation the headline Gauge uses; YoY is the level against the same calendar day a year earlier. Food at home holds the official CPI food-at-home subindex between prints (a USDA advertised-price composite is ingested as a diagnostic but not spliced — it failed the r ≥ 0.7 bar); food away from home holds its official subindex. Both step on the BLS release calendar. The official subindex is quoted at the last print (NSA, one decimal). The daily reading is a measurement of today; the like-for-like comparison is the calendar-month average of the daily series for the print’s reference month (at_print_month_pct), which is what the gap-at-print figure uses. Components: food_home, food_away; weights from the BLS CPI-U relative-importance table (engine weights.json) (2026). Engine construction v1.4.
Item trackers in this category: eggs · milk · butter · cheese · bacon · chicken · ground beef · bread · flour · rice · coffee · chocolate · potatoes · tomatoes · bananas · oranges.
Related: cart · farm to shelf · thanksgiving · compare the forecasters · the Gauge, exposed · methodology. Embed: <iframe src="https://nowflation.com/embed?view=category&c=food"> (builder).
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