Inflation has cooled and egg prices are back to normal, but it still feels like the checkout total at the grocery store keeps climbing.

So The Banner went shopping — again — to see what Baltimore is finding at the register. In 2022, we surveyed prices of 12 common food items: bananas, bone-in chicken thighs, Old Bay Seasoning, peanut butter, canned green beans, ground beef, milk, sugar, Utz potato chips, bread and eggs.

A little over three years later, we headed back out to those same 20 stores in the region to gauge what’s changed.

A few things surprised us.

Costs are down at half of the stores

Target’s sales are down nationally, but so are prices at the national big-box retailer. In 2022, the total for everything on The Banner’s shopping list was $43.63. In 2026, that checkout total was $35.07 — a decrease of more than 19%, and the steepest drop of the stores we visited.

Our totals at H Mart, ShopRite, Food Lion, Shoppers, Giant, Walmart, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Weis and Lidl also were less this time around than in 2022.

Lidl’s prices only decreased by about 2%. Meanwhile, over at the fellow low-cost German-owned Aldi, prices have increased by about 2%, but it is still the cheapest place to get almost every item on the list.

Trader Joe’s also maintained its spot as the second cheapest, but we weren’t able to grab every item on our list.

Overall costs across stores could have been even cheaper if we had used loyalty membership program discounts.

Beef, Old Bay and Butter

A few times in recent years, most Americans have been shocked by the price of eggs. However, prices have been trending down for about a year.

In 2022, unsalted butter was $7.24 on average, ground beef was at the average price of $6.84 per pound and Maryland’s beloved Old Bay cost an average $5.14.

This time around, ground beef became the most expensive item on our shopping list at $7.17 per pound on average. Old Bay closely followed at $5.24, and in third place was unsalted butter at $4.66 on average.

The $18 difference

In 2022, Sprouts Farmers Market was among the more pricey stores at $48.08 for our shopping cart of 12 items. This time it was $66.38. That’s an $18, or 38% jump in three years.

The organic market had the highest prices for butter, sandwich bread and sugar.

Graul’s Market, a local and family-owned chain, had the highest prices for Utz chips, Old Bay and chicken thighs. Graul’s and Sprouts each charge $9.99 per pound for ground beef.

In 2022, inflation reached a record 9.1%, the cost of eggs skyrocketed due to the bird flu outbreak, and the global supply chain was disrupted by the war between Ukraine and Russia.

Three years later, inflation is down to 2.6% — still higher than the 2% mandate the Federal Reserve wants — and egg prices have fallen from the average of $4.25 per dozen. The war is ongoing, and tariffs have started a new and different conflict.

Affordability is a growing concern for consumers and politicians. Last month, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins caused an upset after she made claims that Americans could keep a healthy diet for around $3 per meal, made up of “a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla and one other thing.”

The comment came with the announcement of a new food pyramid from the Trump administration that prioritized butter, milk and red meat over whole grains.

But those same items are more expensive nationally and in the Baltimore region.