LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevadans are dishing up more cash for groceries than almost every other state in the country.
A recent Help Advisor's report shows Nevada residents spend the second-highest amount on groceries per week in the United States. That's leaving many families in the valley struggling to afford the food they are putting on the table.
As Las Vegas resident Tara Cruz left a grocery store with food for her family of four, she told me how buying groceries is becoming an unbearable financial strain.
"Very challenging, I have seen them like triple, definitely triple the prices like overnight,” Cruz said.
I asked her how hard it is to keep up with prices.
“Very hard. I hear other customers say they go to several different stores because they say the prices are higher for some things in certain stores and lower in others,” Cruz said.
Cruz's story is all too familiar for many families in Nevada. According to data from a U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey, Nevada is the second most expensive state for groceries nationwide, with residents spending an average of $294.76 a week.
"Would you say that is pretty accurate," I asked Cruz.
"“I would say that is pretty accurate especially if you are trying to eat pretty healthy.”
To understand why prices are soaring, I headed over to La Bonita Supermarket, a locally-owned grocery story chain.
La Bonita spokesperson Jessica Jordan Tabares tells me the company attributes the higher costs to transportation, distribution, and Nevada's geography.
"We think it is a logistics situation," Tabares explained. "“Truck drivers, for example, really don't like to come to Vegas sometimes because they don't have anything to haul back to the next destination. So because of that, costs can go up. ”
Tabares and I did some shopping of our own to see how much we paid at checkout. We limited our list to staple items like eggs, milk, and cheese. It was enough groceries to last a family of three about one week, eating three meals a day.
“So the total is $102.27. Not too bad for everything we got.”
Tabares said her market works with local vendors buying larger quantities of key items, which allows La Bonita to offer competitive prices to customers like Cruz.
“If i were to buy this at a supermarket, it would have been $100," Cruz said. "Here, it was $40.”
As Nevada families like Cruz try to trim costs to lessen the pinch of high grocery prices, putting food on the table remains a persistent financial challenge.
“I look at the minimum wage and I'm like how can people make it,” Cruz said.
