Food Expenditures

In April 2023, the USDA Economic Research Service released their first State-level Food Expenditure Series. Food expenditures in New England increased from $56.57 billion in 1997, to $108 billion in 2022, a 91% increase (sales dropped to $83.20 billion in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic). This is equal to $7,114.37 per capita for New England residents. The six New England states have some of the highest food expenditures of any of the 50 states, and all of them are above the U.S. average. Explanations for why this is the case are not explained by USDA data, but reasons could include higher food prices due to shipping distances, consumer preferences (e.g., for more expensive seafood instead of other proteins in Maine), alcoholic beverage purchases (which are higher in the Northeast than other regions of the country), and higher median incomes (e.g., contrast the low food expenditures of Southern states with lower median incomes and high rates of poverty to the New England states).

State-Level Food Expenditures

Per Capita Food Expenditures

Note About Connecticut Maps: Although Connecticut has not had county governments since 1960, county boundaries have historically been used to depict data. For example, all USDA Census of Agriculture data for Connecticut is collected at a county-level. In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau shifted to using Connecticut's nine planning regions as county equivalent geographic units for data collection. This has presented a challenge for depicting data for Connecticut's planning regions in Tableau. This mapping challenge has not been resolved yet, but when a solution is available, we will update Connecticut maps.