By the numbers
Spending on food in Wisconsin reached a record $5,943 per person in 2025. However, adjusting for inflation, food spending is slightly below the per-capita peak in 2019, when spending was $6,143 per person in today’s dollars, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Inflation-adjusted per-person spending is up 12.7 percent from 1997, when the figure was $5,272 in today’s dollars.
In total, people in Wisconsin, whether residents or visitors, spent $35.5 billion on food, either in groceries or by dining out, in 2025, a record, though below 2019 peak of $35.8 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.
The food component of the urban consumer price index, assembled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, demonstrates the persistent effects of high inflation over the early 2020s. The index tracks the increase in prices for approximately the same amount of food. In January 2020, the index stood at about 261.1. By January 2023, it was up to 319, a 22 percent increase in just three years.
Even as inflation — that is, the rate of change in the price of everything from groceries to fast food — has slowed down, the actual price level continues to increase. Food is still getting more expensive month-over-month, it just does so less noticeably.
Spending on food away from home continued to grow to $3,053 while spending on food at home was essentially unchanged at $2,890. In terms of per-person spending in today’s dollars, spending on dining out closely tracked spending on food at home from 2002 to 2010, but grew to $3,243 in 2019 while spending on food at home was only $2,900. Spending on dining out fell by more than $500 per person as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns, but regained its lead by 2022.
Wyatt Eichholz is a policy and legislative associate at the Badger Institute.
Any use or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written permission. To request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute Marketing Director Matt Erdman at matt@badgerinstitute.org.
