Pasta prices: shelf, cost and outlook for 2026

Pasta has been one of the calmer corners of the grocery aisle. Since January 2020 the government's price index for rice, pasta and cornmeal has risen 24%, while food at home as a whole rose 32%. Dry pasta makers, meanwhile, raised the prices they charge by 35%. This brief sets those numbers side by side, from public Bureau of Labor Statistics and USDA data, for brands that sell dry pasta or egg noodles.

Every chart below is built from published series. The sources, with links to the tables behind each line, are at the foot of the page.

Pasta prices against the grocery basket

Rice, pasta and cornmeal has trailed the basket for most of the time since 2020, by a few points until 2023 and by more since. It jumped in 2022 and early 2023 along with everything else, then flattened and drifted down through 2024 and 2025 while the rest of the basket kept climbing. By August 2026 the category index stood 24% above its January 2020 level. All food at home stood 32% above.

So for three years a shopper has watched pasta get cheaper relative to the rest of the cart. Is that headroom a brand can use, or a sign that promotions and private label have been setting the price?

What a pound of spaghetti costs

The index covers a group of products. The BLS average price narrows it to one: spaghetti and macaroni, per pound, averaged across U.S. cities. It was $1.37 in August 2026, 6.2% more than a year earlier and 12% more than in January 2020.

It got there unevenly. The average fell in 2021, rose sharply through 2022 to a peak in early 2023, eased for two years, then turned up again in 2026. Because an average price mixes brands, pack sizes and promotions, a move in it can mean shoppers changed what they bought as much as any shelf tag changed.

The last two years, month by month

Compared with the same month a year earlier, the category index was lower in every month of 2025 that BLS published. In 2026 that reversed. Every month this year has come in above the year before, and the biggest increases were in June, July and August.

October 2025 is missing here and from the lines above. BLS published no index for that month, so the charts leave a gap instead of filling it with a guess.

Your next pricing conversation will happen in this window. Increases taken in 2026 land on shoppers who spent a year watching the category get cheaper. Which of your retailers have passed the latest increases through, and which are still holding last year's price?

Costs rose faster than the shelf

The cost chain runs from wheat, to the price pasta makers charge, to the price on the shelf. Rebased to January 2020, the farm price of wheat more than doubled by 2022 and fell back, though it is still well above where it started. Wheat jumped in January 2020 itself and swings with the harvest, so a single percentage measured from that month would say more about the month than about the trend. The producer price for dry pasta and egg noodles rose later and stayed up: it was 35% above January 2020 in August 2026, against 24% for the shelf index.

Two caveats. The farm price here is for wheat in general, not the durum most dry pasta is made from, and the shelf index includes rice and cornmeal as well as pasta. Even allowing for both, what manufacturers charge has risen more than what shoppers pay. So where did the difference go? Retailer margin, trade spend and a shift toward cheaper products are all candidates, and your own data can tell them apart.

What the USDA expects

The USDA Economic Research Service forecasts prices for cereals and bakery products, the CPI group pasta sits in, to rise 2.5% in 2026, close to its 2.4% forecast for all food at home. For 2027 its range runs from a fall to a steep rise, which is a reason to plan for more than one outcome.

What's next for pantry brands

If you sell dry pasta or egg noodles, start with your costs. The producer price has run ahead of the shelf index since 2022, and if your cost of goods followed it up, a pricing conversation with your retailers may be overdue. The category's move back above year-ago levels makes that conversation easier to open than it was a year ago.

Then look at where the volume is going. An average price that rose less than the producer price can hide a shift toward private label, larger packs or deeper promotions. Retailer and syndicated data will show which of those is happening in your stores, and at which banners.

And plan 2027 for a range, not a point. The USDA midpoint is steady; its range is not. A promotion calendar that still works if prices move a few points either way costs less than one rebuilt halfway through the year.

Scout reads the retailer portals and syndicated feeds these questions need. To see what the numbers look like for your own brand, ask below.