US grocery volume is shrinking, and the drop-off has gotten steep enough that price increases can no longer cover for it. Unit sales fell nearly 2% YoY in each month from February through June 2026, according to a NielsenIQ analysis from Bain & Company. Prices are still climbing 2% to 3% annually, roughly in line with food-at-home inflation. But that pricing growth is no longer masking the volume story the way it did through most of 2025.

The pressure comes from several sources at once, not a single shock. SNAP participation dropped sharply in late 2025 as benefits were scaled back, and tighter eligibility rules added further strain in early 2026. Gas prices jumped more than 20% in March, cutting into weekly budgets already stretched by a 33% rise in grocery prices since 2019. In Bain's Consumer Lab pulse survey, 80% of Americans said they were still trying to spend less and 28% are actively cutting back on groceries specifically. Of that group, 56% are trading down to cheaper brands, 49% are simply buying fewer items, and 44% are leaning harder on coupons and promotions.

The two firms are describing the same shift from different angles. Bain's data shows the topline consequence: unit volume down, sales growth propped up almost entirely by price. McKinsey's consumer survey for its 2026 State of Grocery North America report shows the trade-offs that produce that outcome, trip by trip and item by item. More than half of shoppers say they're cutting impulse purchases, and 47% are trading into private label.

With real growth flat or declining, Bain frames grocery as turning into a share game, and the early evidence backs that up. Value-oriented retailers, including discount, mass, and club players, appear to be gaining consumers, and 22% of shoppers say they're actively exploring more retailers in search of better deals. But gaining shoppers doesn't solve the unit problem. People are still buying less overall, which points to a longer stretch of soft sales across the industry until the macro picture improves.

Winning share means being value-driven, not just cheap

The retailers pulling ahead aren't necessarily the cheapest. McKinsey's grocer survey found that a small set of categories, chiefly eggs, ground beef, chicken, and milk, disproportionately shape whether shoppers see a store as good value, and 81% of grocers plan to concentrate their pricing investment on exactly those items rather than spreading cuts across the whole assortment. Bain reaches a similar conclusion from the consumer side: the edge goes to retailers that price sharply on the products shoppers actually notice, then use promotions, loyalty, and private label with precision to make the value story credible.

Loyalty programs are becoming the mechanism that ties that story together. McKinsey found that loyalty members who redeem personalized offers spend 4.3 times more annually than shoppers who don't, and more than 80% of grocers now see loyalty as a primary engine of value delivery rather than just an engagement tool. Promotions are shifting the same direction: Grocers report that 35% of promotions today are fully personalized, and they expect that to reach 55% within two to three years.

The store hasn't lost its pull, even as wallets tighten

Shoppers haven't given up on physical stores. Some 54% of Americans always shop in person at their primary store, according to FMI's 2026 US Grocery Shopper Trends report, developed with the Hartman Group, and only 15% split their shopping evenly between in-store and online. What shoppers would miss most without in-person access is the ability to select their own products, cited by 48% of respondents, ahead of human connection and the enjoyment of the experience.

That loyalty isn't tied to a single store, though. Americans visit 5.4 separate grocery banners per month on average, and that number climbs to 6.7 for Gen Z shoppers and 6.1 for millennials, according to FMI. That kind of banner-hopping is exactly what makes the current environment a share game rather than a growth game. Shoppers aren't abandoning stores. They're distributing the same shrinking basket across more of them, hunting for whichever retailer makes its value proposition easiest to understand.

Grocers can't win shoppers back purely on price. Consumers described the in-store experiences that build loyalty as simple, efficient, and non-overwhelming, with the “personality” of a store, from bulk-buying mass retailers to culturally specific specialty shops, playing a real role in where they choose to return.

For the back half of 2026, growth has to be won rather than assumed. The retailers positioned to take share are the ones that make a small number of high-visibility prices feel fair, back that up with a loyalty and promotion system that rewards repeat shoppers, and keep the in-store experience distinctive enough to earn one of those 5.4 monthly visits. Their competitors are still waiting for volume to come back on its own.

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