economy_food_avgprice_region_year
National + region grain. BLS Average Price Data (AP survey) — actual dollar prices for staple food items (bread, eggs, milk, beef, chicken, butter, etc.) at U.S. City Average and 4 census regions. Annual average of monthly price collections. National/region only, no county. Pairs with economy_food_cpi_region_year for inflation context.
tier aTier A: official BLS survey. Prices are averages across retail outlets sampled by BLS.
overview
overview
~7,900 region-year-item rows. BLS average retail prices for ~20 food items by region.
current vintage — 2025
history — Yes — 1995–2025
provenance
source & licensing
authority
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
dataset
BLS Average Retail Food Prices
source url
license
Public domain (U.S. Federal Government work)
citation
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Average Retail Food and Energy Prices.
schema
fields
| name | type | definition |
|---|---|---|
| _ingested_at | timestamp | Timestamp when this record was written to BigQuery.Pipeline metadata field. |
| _ingestor_version | string | Version of the ingestor script that produced this record.Pipeline metadata field. |
| _reliability_tier | string | Data quality tier (A/B/C) assigned at ingestion.Pipeline metadata field. |
| _source_dataset_id | string | Internal dataset identifier linking to meta.datasets.Pipeline metadata field. |
| area_codekey | string | BLS geographic area code identifying the U.S. City Average or one of the four census regions surveyed in the AP program.Part of primary key. |
| area_name | string | Human-readable label for the geographic area corresponding to area_code (e.g., 'U.S. City Average', 'Northeast Urban'). |
| area_type | string | Classification of the geographic area, distinguishing national aggregate from regional breakdowns (e.g., 'National' or 'Region'). |
| country_id | string | ISO alpha-2 country code (always 'US' for domestic tables). |
| item_codekey | string | BLS item code identifying the specific staple food product tracked in the AP survey (e.g., bread, eggs, milk, beef).Part of primary key. |
| item_name | string | Human-readable label for the food item corresponding to item_code, including packaging or form details as published by BLS. |
| month_count | int64 · count | Number of monthly price observations available for the item-area combination in the reference year, used to assess coverage completeness. A full year of monthly collections yields a value of 12. |
| price_usd | float64 · dollars (nominal) | Annual average retail price for the food item in the given area, computed as the mean of monthly price collections within the year. Higher values indicate a more expensive item or period. |
| yearkey | int64 | Reference year of the observation.Part of primary key. |
relationships
joins
primary key
area_code, item_code, year
common joins
economy_food_cpi_region_year on (region, year)
usage
how to use this table
method
Annual average of BLS monthly average retail price series by region and food item.
do not use for
Individual store or county-level price comparison — prices reflect BLS sample averages.
← previousus_economy.economy_establishments_county_yearnext →us_economy.economy_food_cpi_region_year
last updated · Jul 7, 2026