What it returns
Monthly US average retail prices from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the official figures behind grocery-price headlines: eggs, milk, ground beef, chicken, bread, coffee, bananas, tomatoes, gasoline, electricity and more, for the US city average, the four census regions and the metro areas BLS prices. Ask by plain item name; you get one row per item, area and month from 1995 on, with the change from the previous month and from a year earlier.
| field | meaning |
|---|---|
| item, itemCode | BLS item name (with its unit) and code |
| area, areaCode | US city average, region or metro area |
| month | YYYY-MM |
| price, unit, currency | Average retail price in US dollars per the unit shown |
| changeFromPreviousMonth, pctChangeFromPreviousMonth | Change from the month before |
| changeFromYearAgo, pctChangeFromYearAgo | Change from the same month a year earlier |
| seriesId | The BLS series id, for citing the source |
BLS publishes each month's prices with the CPI release, about two weeks after the month ends. Regional and metro coverage is narrower than the national one: many items are priced only for the US city average.
Common uses
- Grocery and budgeting apps showing what staples cost and how fast they are rising
- News and newsletter charts on egg, beef or coffee prices
- Restaurant and food-business cost tracking, and inflation research by item
Request
POST https://api.pushbuild.com/us-food-retail-prices/run with a JSON body. Send your key in the X-API-Key header.
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
items | list of strings | Item names (all words must match: eggs, ground beef, coffee, whole milk, bananas, gasoline) or BLS item codes (708111). Set listItems to see every item. |
areas | list of strings | us, northeast, midwest, south, west, a metro name (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles) or a BLS area code (S11A). Default: us. |
startMonth | string | YYYY-MM, from 1995-01. Default: two years ago. |
endMonth | string | YYYY-MM. Default: latest. |
latestOnly | boolean | One row per item and area: the newest published price. Default: false. |
includeDiscontinued | boolean | Also return series BLS stopped pricing (many regional series ended years ago). Default: false. |
listItems | boolean | Return the item catalog (code, name, unit, first and last month) instead of prices. Default: false. |
maxItems | integer | Maximum items to return (1-500). Default: 100. |
Example
curl -X POST https://api.pushbuild.com/us-food-retail-prices/run \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"items": ["eggs", "ground beef"], "areas": ["us"], "maxItems": 20}'Response
{"count": 20, "truncated": false, "seconds": 1.4, "items": [ { ... } ]}Each call returns up to 500 items. Records that fail validation or are not found are flagged in the items and not charged.
Pricing
Pay only for results returned: $0.16 per 1,000 prices. No charge for errors or empty searches.
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