March 21, 2007 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Food expenditures in 2005

A 1.5-percent drop in spending on food at home in 2005 was offset by an 8.2-percent increase in spending on food away from home, resulting in a 2.6-percent increase in total food expenditures.

[Chart data—TXT]

For comparison, overall spending on food increased 8.3 percent in 2004 after a slight decrease (0.7 percent) in 2003.

The introduction of a new, more user-friendly diary questionnaire in 2005 may have had an effect on the amount of spending reported in 2005, as well as on how the expenditures were distributed among the components. As a result, expenditures on food that were collected in the Diary Survey in 2005 may not be strictly comparable to earlier years.

The drop in food at home expenditures in 2005 was driven by a significant decrease (13.1 percent) in spending on meats, poultry, fish and eggs. Expenditures for two components of food at home increased in 2005: Dairy products were up 2.0 percent and other food at home increased by a significant 7.7 percent.

These data are from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Find out more in "Consumer Expenditures in 2005," (PDF 143K), BLS Report 998.