Walmart Is Lowering Its Food Prices—Here’s Why

You’re not imagining it. Grocery prices really have gone through the roof in recent years, even at Walmart. According to the USDA, food prices have increased by 25% from 2019 to 2023.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that people in power are saying that they’re ready to help. If you shop for food at Walmart, you’ve probably seen your bill leap up with the rest of the nation, but that may be starting to change.

At Walmart’s second-quarter earnings call on August 15, Walmart president and CEO Doug McMillon announced that though the stores’ food prices were “slightly inflated” at the end of Q2, they are “slightly deflationary overall,” down 30 basis points compared to Q1. 30 basis points is equivalent to a .3% change.

“As it relates to value, we’re lowering prices,” McMillon said. Across categories, there have been 7,200 rollbacks, which is what Walmart calls its price cuts. In fact, McMillon announced in Walmart’s February earnings call that, “In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries.” Their goal is to bring more of those items down to a price that’s affordable for every shopper.

McMillon also said on the August call that he is “fighting back on [cost increases] aggressively” with branded suppliers who are still seeking to increase prices. This isn’t done out of charity, of course. McMillon said that he expects that sales for Walmart will increase by 3.25% to 4.25% in Q3 and slightly more than that in the 2025 fiscal year. It turns out that lower prices could be good for Walmart’s bottom line.

In the February call, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., John Furner, illustrated this concept well. “We took our French bread back to $1 which had been $1 for a long time and went up as inflation hit the market,” he said. “And we’re seeing results of that running about 40% over last year, so customers immediately responded. Rotisserie chicken is another one. That price has come down by $1. Customers are responding.”

Walmart’s changes are very much part of the zeitgeist. Just ask U.S. major party presidential candidates. Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are campaigning on the promise of lowering food costs. 

Harris says that she will push for a federal ban on the price-gouging that some economists believe began with companies taking advantage of the supply chain issues at the height of the pandemic, a concept sometimes called “greedflation”. Meanwhile, Trump raised the alarm last week against what he called Harris’s “communist price control.” His plan regarding groceries has thus far been less specifically focused, though he promises that bringing down oil prices by drilling domestically will “bring down prices of everything.”

Either way, the tide appears to be moving in the right direction for shoppers. In May, Target announced similar price cuts on 5,000 popular items including milk, meat, bread and fresh produce. Hopefully, it will soon be easier to keep a lower grocery budget, but the truth is, hunting for bargains will never go out of style.