Americans aren’t just paying more for groceries; they’re paying with their time, convenience and lifestyle, according to new research from Iridio by RRD, whose 2026 State of Grocery & CPG Report finds 79 percent of U.S. adults spend additional time each week trying to save money on groceries compared with three years ago.
The study, conducted with Wakefield Research among 1,000 nationally representative U.S. adults and 300 grocery, CPG and mass retail decision-makers, describes an emerging “value optimization economy” in which consumers trade time, convenience and brand preference to stretch budgets while businesses race to respond, and it pairs the shopper data with an unusually candid look at where retail execution falls short.
“We’ve reached a tipping point where saving money on food has become a second job for many households,” said Beth Johnson, grocery industry strategist at RRD and Iridio. “Consumers are willing to trade their personal data, time and brand loyalty, but only if retailers give them tangible, real-time value in return. The brands that win tomorrow will be those that solve this efficiency crisis for shoppers on the shelf.”
Key findings
- Some 58 percent of adults spend at least 30 extra minutes weekly seeking grocery deals, with 32 percent spending an hour or longer, and 78 percent have reduced or eliminated spending elsewhere because of grocery costs.
- Gen Z feels it hardest: 86 percent cut lifestyle spending to afford food, led by dining out (42 percent), entertainment (35 percent) and travel (32 percent).
- Some 73 percent of consumers adopted new shopping habits in the past year; among those changing how they plan and budget, 45 percent seek the lowest price on every item, while 29 percent make fewer, smaller trips, 26 percent cut name-brand items and 20 percent swap fresh produce for bulk or shelf-stable goods.
- Coupons remain essential: 36 percent rely more on print or digital coupons, 38 percent keep physical home-delivered coupons as visual reminders and 46 percent would scan in-store QR codes for exclusive rewards.
- Shoppers will trade data for value: 52 percent want alerts when preferred products go on sale, 50 percent want personalized discounts and 48 percent would let a grocer use AI to predict their shopping list if it guaranteed lower prices.
The retail execution gap
The decision-maker side of the study shows the industry straining to keep up. The cost of adapting to shifting consumer demands ranked as the top enterprise concern at 55 percent, followed by consumer affordability pressures at 52 percent and AI-powered shopping agents at 39 percent, and click-and-collect and delivery growth have forced 99 percent of decision-makers to alter packaging and labeling requirements, with 44 percent reporting major operational impact.
Execution lags expectation: 35 percent of decision-makers say their inventory data is too slow, leaving organizations routinely selling products online that are already out of stock on the shelf, and 28 percent cite inventory inaccuracy between digital and physical shelves as the single biggest hurdle to omnichannel strategy. Thirty percent identify the inability to agree on uniform data standards with trading partners as the biggest roadblock to real-time collaboration.
As consumers trade down, 53 percent of decision-makers report CPG brands investing heavily in premium visual branding and specialty packaging to defend equity against private label, and supply chain inventory tracking and automated fulfillment lead projected capital investment for next year at 37 percent, ahead of digital marketing at 29 percent and computer vision at 24 percent.
The result, the report concludes, is a widening gap between the speed at which consumers expect value and the speed at which retail organizations can deliver it. The complete report is available at go.iridio.com/state-of-grocery-report.
Iridio, backed by Chicago-based RRD’s global scale, unifies creative, media, data and analytics for brands in retail and other industries.
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