New consumer research shows 61% of shoppers have changed how much food they buy due to rising prices, but freshness remains the one category consumers refuse to compromise on, creating a sharply uneven demand picture for retailers and manufacturers
Grocery shoppers are no longer making blanket cutbacks in response to rising prices — they’re making calculated, category-by-category trade-offs, and fresh food keeps winning. That’s the central finding of RELEX Solutions’ State of Supply Chain Consumer Pulse survey, released this week, which polled 1,000 consumers across the US and UK and found a demand environment that’s becoming significantly harder for retailers and manufacturers to forecast.
Table of Contents
The Headline Numbers
Sixty-one percent of consumers say they’ve changed how much food they purchase due to higher grocery prices, according to the survey. But the cutbacks aren’t spread evenly across the basket. Nearly half of shoppers (46%) have pulled back on snacks and junk food, 39% have reduced beef purchases specifically, and 34% have cut back on alcohol.
Fresh groceries are the clear exception. Sixty-eight percent of consumers say fresh groceries remain worth paying more for, and 49% say the same of household essentials — a sign that even as shoppers tighten spending elsewhere, freshness and staples are treated as close to non-negotiable.
“For retailers and manufacturers, the biggest risk is assuming consumers are responding to rising costs in the same way,” said Laurence Brenig-Jones, VP Product, Platform at RELEX Solutions. “Consumers are making highly individualized decisions based on price, health goals, value and household priorities… That creates a very different planning challenge than broad-based demand declines because retailers need to be able to respond to shifting demand at the category level.”
Beef Has Become a Cost-of-Living Bellwether
One of the more striking findings is how closely consumers are now watching beef prices specifically. Nearly half (49%) say they’re monitoring beef prices as an indicator of their overall cost of living — elevating a single protein category to the status of a household economic signal, alongside more traditional markers like gas prices.
That sensitivity tracks with what’s happening at the supply level. Beef has faced sustained price pressure tied to tight US cattle supplies, and the RELEX findings suggest consumers are responding to that pressure directly: more than a third have already reduced beef purchases, even as overall meat and protein spending remains a priority category for many households.
What’s Driving the Trade-Offs
Beyond simple price sensitivity, the survey points to several distinct forces shaping how consumers allocate their grocery dollars:
- 39% say efforts to reduce food waste are influencing how much food they purchase
- 37% cite healthier eating habits as a factor shaping purchasing decisions
- 71% are cooking at home more often than they were a year ago
- 10% say GLP-1s or other appetite-affecting medications have influenced how much food they buy
That last figure is a relatively new variable in grocery demand forecasting. While still a minority of shoppers, the influence of appetite-affecting medications on food purchasing represents an emerging category-level shift that retailers and manufacturers are only beginning to account for in assortment and inventory planning.
Consumers Are Bracing for More Pressure, Not Less
The RELEX data shows consumer anxiety extends well beyond current prices. More than seven in 10 respondents (71%) are concerned that tariffs, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, and other global events will continue pushing up the cost of everyday goods over the next six months. That concern lines up with broader industry data: separate research has found roughly two-thirds of consumers cite tariffs as a driver of rising food costs, and a comparable share of grocery organizations report being directly affected by tariff and trade policy changes.
That anticipatory anxiety is already reshaping shopping behavior in concrete ways:
- 54% say lower prices are the single most important action retailers can take to help them manage rising costs
- 51% stock up during promotions
- 47% have switched to private-label products
- 40% shop at discount retailers more often
- 38% visit multiple stores to find the best prices
The shift toward private label is consistent with a broader trend showing up across other recent consumer research: separate industry surveys have found a declining share of shoppers associate name brands with better quality than store brands, accelerating private-label growth even among households not under acute financial pressure.
Shrinkflation Awareness Remains High
Beyond price itself, consumers remain highly attuned to value erosion in more subtle forms. Products feeling smaller or lower quality than expected ranked as the second-biggest overall shopping frustration in the survey, underscoring that shrinkflation — reducing package size or product quality while holding price steady — has not gone unnoticed by an increasingly price-literate shopper base.
The Bigger Planning Challenge for Retailers and Manufacturers
The consumer findings track closely with operational pressures RELEX identified in its broader 2026 State of Supply Chain report, which surveyed retail and manufacturing organizations directly:
- 86% of organizations report being impacted by tariffs and trade policy changes
- 40% cite customer demand fluctuations as a major disruption
- 34% say demand volatility is complicating planning decisions
- 30% of retailers say adapting to changing consumer demand is a significant challenge
Together, the consumer and organizational data paint a picture of a grocery sector where the central forecasting challenge isn’t simply predicting whether demand will rise or fall — it’s predicting which categories will move in which direction, and by how much, as individual households make increasingly differentiated trade-offs based on their own price sensitivity, health priorities, and budget constraints.
Why This Matters for F&B Value Chain Planning
For retailers and manufacturers, the uneven nature of this demand shift has direct implications for inventory, pricing, and assortment strategy. A category like fresh produce or meat, where consumers have signaled continued willingness to pay, requires a fundamentally different planning approach than a category like snacks or alcohol, where cutbacks are already underway and likely to continue if tariff-driven cost pressure persists through the back half of 2026. Treating all categories as subject to the same demand elasticity risks both overstocking categories facing real pullback and understocking the fresh and essential categories where shoppers have made clear they’re still willing to spend.
Related Reports
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of consumers have changed their grocery purchasing due to rising prices?
61% of consumers surveyed say they’ve changed how much food they purchase due to higher grocery prices, according to RELEX Solutions’ State of Supply Chain Consumer Pulse survey.
Which grocery categories are consumers cutting back on most?
Snacks and junk food saw the largest pullback, with 46% of consumers cutting back, followed by beef (39%) and alcohol (34%).
Are consumers willing to pay more for any grocery categories?
Yes. 68% of consumers say fresh groceries remain worth paying more for, and 49% say the same about household essentials, suggesting these categories are largely protected from broader spending cutbacks.
Why are consumers watching beef prices specifically?
Nearly half of consumers (49%) say they’re closely monitoring beef prices as an indicator of their overall cost of living, reflecting both beef’s visibility as a household staple and sustained price pressure tied to tight cattle supplies.
How are consumers responding to concerns about future price increases?
71% of consumers are concerned that tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and supply chain disruptions will continue raising prices over the next six months. In response, many are stocking up during promotions (51%), switching to private-label products (47%), and shopping at discount retailers more often (40%).
What role are GLP-1 medications playing in grocery purchasing?
10% of consumers say GLP-1s or other appetite-affecting medications have influenced how much food they purchase — a relatively small but emerging factor that retailers and manufacturers are beginning to account for in demand planning.
How are businesses being affected by these shifting consumer patterns?
According to RELEX’s companion organizational survey, 86% of retail and manufacturing organizations report being impacted by tariffs and trade policy changes, while 40% cite customer demand fluctuations as a major disruption to planning.
Sources & References
| Source | Publication | Date | URL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supermarket News | Fresh groceries are worth it, but shoppers are cutting back everywhere else | June 18, 2026 | https://www.supermarketnews.com |
| The Shelby Report | Relex Survey: 61% of Consumers Changed Grocery Spending As Costs Rise | June 18, 2026 | https://theshelbyreport.com/2026/06/18/relex-survey-61-of-consumers-changed-grocery-spending-as-costs-rise/ |
| RELEX Solutions | 2026 State of Supply Chain Report | 2026 | https://www.relexsolutions.com |
| Purdue University / Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability | Consumer Food Insights Survey | December 2025 / January 2026 | https://ag.purdue.edu/news/2026/01/consumer-food-insights-survey-assesses-2025-grocery-spending.html |
| Progressive Grocer | The 2026 Consumer Expenditures Study: What Shoppers Care About Beyond Price | March 2026 | https://progressivegrocer.com/2026-consumer-expenditures-study-what-shoppers-care-about-beyond-price |
| Supermarket News | Grocery shoppers to spend more as buying behavior evolves (Ibotta State of Spend) | February 2026 | https://www.supermarketnews.com/grocery-trends-data/report-grocery-shoppers-predicted-to-spend-more-on-food-in-2026-as-buying-behavior-evolves |
| Grocery Dive | Shoppers plan to spend more on groceries next year: report (AlixPartners) | December 2025 | https://www.grocerydive.com/news/grocery-spending-2026-consumers-alixpartners/807892/ |
