Beef Is Forecast to Jump 9.8% This Year. Eggs Are Forecast to Fall 31%.

The USDA updated its Food Price Outlook on August 25, and the meat case just became the strangest aisle in the store. Beef and veal prices are now forecast to climb 9.8% for all of 2026, with a plausible range up to 12.6%. Eggs, in the same case a few feet away, are forecast to fall 30.8% over the same year. Two proteins, one refrigerated section, moving in almost exactly opposite directions.

The category breakdown

Here's how USDA's full 2026 forecast breaks out by grocery category, using the July CPI and producer price data folded into the August update:

Beef is the fastest-climbing item on the whole grocery list this year, well ahead of the 2.5% the average basket is expected to rise. Eggs are the only category moving in reverse, and by a wide margin.

Why the two are splitting apart

Eggs are recovering. The 2025 avian flu outbreaks thinned laying flocks and sent egg prices to record highs; producers spent the past year rebuilding those flocks, and supply is now catching up to demand. That's the mechanical reason egg prices are falling: more hens laying, more eggs on shelves, prices sliding back toward normal.

Beef is the opposite problem, and it's been building for longer. The U.S. cattle herd has been shrinking since 2019 as drought pushed ranchers to sell off breeding stock rather than pay to feed it through dry years. Rebuilding a herd takes two to three years from the decision to keep more heifers to more calves reaching the beef case, so today's tight beef supply reflects choices ranchers made years ago, not something that reverses by next quarter.

What it means in dollars

If ground beef is running around $6 a pound at your store today, a 9.8% rise puts it near $6.59 by year's end, an extra 59 cents a pound. A household that buys three pounds of ground beef a week is looking at roughly $9 more a month just on that one item, before steaks, roasts, or anything else in the beef case.

Eggs move the other way by more. A dozen large eggs averaging $4 today would drop to around $2.77 at the forecast rate, saving about $1.23 a dozen. A household buying two dozen a week keeps close to $10 a month back in the budget.

Net it out and the two categories roughly offset each other for a household that eats both regularly, which is exactly why the "food at home overall up 2.5%" headline number hides more than it tells you. Your actual bill depends entirely on which side of this split your shopping list leans toward.

The move that follows from this

This is the year to let eggs do more of the protein work and treat beef as the occasional purchase rather than the default. Eggs were already one of the cheapest proteins per serving before this forecast; a falling price just widens the gap. Swap one or two beef dinners a week for an egg-based one, shift ground beef recipes toward pork or poultry (both nearly flat this year), and save the actual steak or roast for when you want it rather than when the week's menu defaults to it. The USDA forecast has a wide range on both ends, so treat these as directional, not exact, but the direction itself is the useful part: one protein in your cart is getting notably cheaper this year, and it's not the one most people reach for first.