As another poster said, it truly depends on where you live. In my state, grocery stores will be expensive for rural shoppers, but there are an abundance of farm

As another poster said, it truly depends on where you live. In my state, grocery stores will be expensive for rural shoppers, but there are an abundance of farmer's markets and local mom and pops with cheap, but seasonal food. Even for national chains, things are just cheaper if you eat what's in season for your area. When apples are in season for my state, they're cheap. Then a little more expensive when they have to come out of state and then super expensive when they're imported because they're out of season in the US generally. Americans just don't eat seasonally and that ups the cost. We also have the problem where some states over specialize on particular foods, so everything beyond that has a baseline higher expense.