U.S. grocery coffee prices hit record high in April 2026
Ground roast coffee hit a record $9.72 a pound in April, pushing a 12-ounce bag to about $7.29 before tax.
The grocery shelf just got a lot less forgiving for coffee drinkers. A pound of ground roast coffee sold at U.S. stores averaged $9.723 in April, the highest level in the series since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking it in 1980. For a standard 12-ounce bag, that works out to about $7.29 before tax, which is a very different number than the one shoppers had in their heads when they last filled the canister.
This is a price-level story, not just an inflation headline. BLS says its monthly average prices estimate what consumers are paying for a good, while the CPI measures price change. Even so, the message was loud in April: coffee prices were up 18.5% from a year earlier, far above the 3.8% rise in all items and the 2.9% increase in food at home. Food at home also rose 0.7% from March to April, while coffee kept leaning on the household budget where most of the cups are actually brewed. The National Coffee Association says 85% of past-day coffee drinkers had coffee at home, the highest share since 2012, and the next BLS update is scheduled for June 10.
Upstream, the pressure is still broad. The BLS producer-price index for coffee that groups whole bean, ground and instant stood at 362.216 in March 2026, while the roasted coffee producer index was 321.692. BLS has also shown that instant coffee and roasted coffee do not peak on the same schedule, with instant coffee reaching a recent high in July 2024 and roasted coffee peaking earlier in March 2023. Specialty roasters have moved more slowly, with the Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index up 3.9% in the first quarter and roasted specialty coffee averaging $32.75 a pound at the end of March. USDA’s April outlook still has nonalcoholic beverages rising 5.2% in 2026, and CBP launched the first phase of its CAPE refund process on April 20, a back-office step that may ease tariff refunds but does not change the shelf tag overnight.
That is why the April record lands so hard in the morning routine. The bag on the shelf is now a pricier weekly buy, and the cup poured at the kitchen counter is where the squeeze shows up first.
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