--- title: Cheeseburger Inflation! Why Restaurant Price Increases Are Outpacing Grocery Costs description: At the same time that grocery prices have only increased 0.3%, prices for food eaten away from home in restaurants are up nearly 3%. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-12-17T11:30:30.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T10:44:25.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - Food & Drink - groceries - restaurants word_count: 283 canonical: https://money.com/grocery-restaurant-prices-inflation/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![cheeseburger](https://img.money.com/2015/12/151215_em_cheeseburgerprices.jpg?crop=0px%2C981px%2C2100px%2C1181px&quality=85) This may come as a surprise given the way that prices for [eggs and a few other groceries](https://money.com/collection-post/what-got-more-and-less-expensive/) have soared in 2015, but overall, supermarket food prices have barely budged over the past year. According to the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t02.htm), the "food at home" category saw prices increase just 0.3% for the 12-month period ending in November 2015. Prices for many grocery staples, including milk, coffee, beef, ham, cheese, and chicken have actually fallen during this time span. Yet as the restaurant-focused publication *[Burger Business](http://burgerbusiness.com/are-menu-prices-rising-too-fast/)* pointed out, inflation for the "food away from home" category—a.k.a. restaurants—hit 2.7% over the same period. In many cases, restaurants are increasing prices on items made with ingredients that have gotten significantly cheaper. "Supermarket prices for key items such as ground beef and cheese are down—both declining by 3.3% over the past year—while restaurant prices for cheeseburgers may be up," *Burger Business* stated. Of course, the price of food is only part of the costs incurred in running a restaurant. Labor and technology costs factor in as well, as examples, and these have largely been on the rise. But other business costs, such as [gasoline and transportation](https://money.com/gas-prices-cheap-2-per-gallon/) in general, have decreased alongside groceries. So why exactly are restaurant price increases outpacing food price inflation in general? One explanation is that restaurants feel they're simply overdue to raise prices, and that whatever falloff in customer traffic they experience because of higher prices will be offset by higher profits from the customers they still do serve. This could be part of the reason why fast food restaurants are killing dollar menus and replacing them with upsells that force customers into spending at least a few bucks on each visit. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/grocery-restaurant-prices-inflation/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Inflation", "item": "https://money.com/inflation/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Cheeseburger Inflation! 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