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Many Bangor area residents agree: grocery prices right now are ridiculous.
Like many Americans, Mainers are feeling the effects of climbing fuel prices due to the war in Iran, and some say it’s changing how they shop. Nationwide, grocery prices are up 2.9% from last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Consumer Price Index.
The Bangor Daily News spoke with about a dozen Bangor-area grocery shoppers last week about their perspectives, and visited six local grocery stores to compare prices for 10 staple items: milk, eggs, bread, butter, bananas, potatoes, blueberries, beef, chicken and coffee.
The BDN found little variation across stores for dairy and bread, although beef and produce prices had a wider range. But shoppers at multiple locations said that they need to check for sales ahead of time and visit multiple local stores to get reasonable prices as Mainers grapple with the affordability crisis.
“You have to shop at like seven stores to get what you need,” Kelley, who declined to share her last name, said in the Bangor Walmart parking lot. She said she thinks prices are better there for paper goods like toilet paper, but she also goes to Hannaford, Shaw’s and Sam’s Club. “It all depends on what you’re looking for,” she said.
Dorothy Eldrige grocery shops at Hannaford because she thinks it has the best deals, but still, “I just spent like $70 and I only got like two small bags of groceries,” she said in the store’s parking lot Thursday.
The BDN visited Shaw’s, Tiller & Rye, Paradis Shop’n Save, Target, Hannaford and Walmart to compare prices. We did not include BJ’s or Sam’s Club prices because those stores require memberships.
Aside from Tiller & Rye, which sells many organic and specialty items, prices for dairy items and bread were similar across most stores.
Cheryl Pelletier bought a few items at Tiller & Rye Thursday but said she’s “not so casual” with her grocery decisions as she used to be. She likes the small business but said she’s been visiting big box stores more often lately.
“I’m certainly thinking about, ‘do I really need that?’” she said.
Hannaford and Paradis Shop ’n Save, which is locally owned but uses Hannaford as a distributor, had the cheapest prices for most items.
Ground beef prices ranged from $2.99 per pound at those two stores to $10.99 at Tiller & Rye. Walmart had the second-highest beef price at $7.30 per pound, but it had by far the cheapest potatoes at 46 cents per pound if you buy a 10-pound bag.
Beef and fresh vegetables are experiencing especially high price swings nationally. Amid a declining American cattle herd size, beef and veal prices are expected to rise 12.1% in 2026.
“Prices have gone up some, but they have good deals too,” Linda Hardesty said outside Paradis Shop’n Save in Brewer. “Of course everything’s gonna go up because of the increase in fuel costs,” she said.
Economists have warned that the full effect of rising fuel prices have not yet hit grocery store prices, and they could get even worse in the next few months, The Hill reported last week.
Hardesty, of Bradley, shops at Paradis Shop’n Save several times a week and likes that it’s smaller and family owned. She said she’s noticed meat prices rising but is glad to see egg prices going down.
Egg prices are predicted to drop nearly 30% in 2026, according to the USDA.
Blueberry prices also varied from store to store. The same Driscoll’s blueberries that cost $3.33 per pound at Hannaford or Paradis cost $6.22 at Shaw’s.
Jessica Drews of Bangor visited Shaw’s Thursday but said she’s been going to Sam’s Club more often to get better prices. She also looks at flyers online ahead of time and signs up for every store’s rewards program. “It’s a pain,” she said.
One shopper in Target’s grocery section, who declined to share her name, also said she switches between Hannaford and Target because she finds that some items are cheaper at Target, especially food and supplies for her cat.
“Everything has gone up. All your basics. You have to really be conscious of what you need,” she said.