Food Dollar Series

The Food Dollar Series measures annual expenditures by U.S. consumers on domestically produced food. This data series is composed of three primary series—the marketing bill series, the industry group series, and the primary factor series—that describe different aspects of the food supply chain. The three series show three different ways to split up the same food dollar. For more information about the Food Dollar Series, see:

A Revised and Expanded Food Dollar Series: A Better Understanding of Our Food Costs

All statistics reported in the dollar bill images represent a percentage of an average annual food dollar expenditure (for more information, see the Glossary page). The same statistics reported in total dollar denominations are available in downloadable tables (for more information, see the Download the Data page).

Data are available from 1993 to 2022 and are updated annually. The data for 2023 will be released on November 18, 2024.

Roughly every 5 years since 1997, a new benchmark data source is published based on the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census’ U.S. Economic Census and the USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service’s Census of Agriculture. With a new benchmark, all data in the Food Dollar Series covering years since the previous benchmark undergo a final revision. For example, in 2022, the 2012 benchmark data were integrated into the Food Dollar Series, so all data from 1993 to 2019 in the series have been reconciled to the benchmark data for 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2012. Beginning with the updates published in 2014, 16 additional commodity-specific tables have been added to the data series that report only benchmark-year statistics (for more information, see Commodity Tables in the Glossary page). 

A 10-year review of the Food Dollar Series estimation program is underway. Once completed, there is the potential for historical revisions to the Food Dollar Series. Meanwhile, the usual nonbenchmark year principal data source updates are provided (tables 1–6). This update includes new nominal and real data for 2022 and revises the data from 2020 and 2021 to incorporate published changes to the source data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).