Canned food remains a measurable part of U.S. meal planning, but the available statistics cover several different concepts: food availability, per-person spending, consumption location, and shelf-stable purchasing. The figures below keep those measures separate. Long-term availability trends run from 1970 to 2005, spending estimates are from 2004, at-home use data comes from 1994–1996 or 2006, and the most recent purchasing context is a 2023 USDA scanner analysis.
Contents
- Long-term canned fruit trends
- Canned vegetable trends and product mix
- Spending by household income
- Spending by demographic group
- Where canned foods were consumed
- The 2023 shelf-stable purchasing context
Long-term canned fruit trends
The USDA Economic Research Service report Canned Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in the United States: A Report to the United States Congress used food-availability measures as a proxy for consumption. Its national series shows canned fruit losing share even while total fruit availability expanded. Between 1970 and 2005, total U.S. fruit available for consumption increased 13%. Over the same period, canned fruit’s share of total fruit availability declined from 11% to 6%, while its share of processed fruit fell from 19% to 11% (USDA ERS report).
Estimated per-capita consumption of canned fruit decreased 35% between 1970 and 2005. Fresh fruit moved in the opposite direction as a share of the overall supply: its share of total fruit availability increased from 42% in 1970 to 46% in 2005. These are availability and share measures, not a current count of household cans purchased.
The category was not uniform. Canned olives were the only covered canned-fruit category to increase between 1970 and 2005, rising by almost 50%. In 2005, canned apples and applesauce ranked first among canned-fruit categories, with each representing more than 20% of total canned-fruit availability. The USDA report also identifies canned apples and applesauce, peaches, and pineapples as each representing more than 20% of total canned-fruit availability in 2005. The wording reflects the report’s category presentation and should not be read as a precise ranking among all individual products.
For meal planning, the historical pattern is therefore two-sided: the overall fruit supply grew, but canned fruit represented a smaller proportion of it by 2005. At the product level, olives increased while applesauce, apples, peaches, and pineapples remained prominent in the 2005 canned-fruit mix.
Canned vegetable trends and product mix
Vegetable availability followed a different path. Total U.S. vegetable availability increased 23% between 1970 and 2005, while canned-vegetable availability increased 5%. Canned vegetables’ share of total vegetable availability fell from 30% to 25%, and their share of processed-vegetable availability fell from 55% to 49% during the same period (USDA ERS report).
After loss adjustment, estimated per-capita availability of canned vegetables increased 3% between 1970 and 2005. That modest overall increase concealed large differences across products:
| Canned product | 1970 per-capita availability | 2005 per-capita availability | Reported change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tomatoes | 21.5 lb | 25.5 lb | +18% |
| Sweet corn | 8.8 lb | 5.3 lb | −40% |
| Snap beans | 2.4 lb | 2.0 lb | −14% |
| Other canned vegetables | 1.3 lb | 1.9 lb | +49% |
| Pickles | 1.9 lb | 1.3 lb | −32% |
| Carrots | 1.4 lb | 1.1 lb | −20% |
| Mushrooms | 0.5 lb | 0.7 lb | +33% |
Tomatoes were the dominant listed category in 2005, accounting for 59% of canned-vegetable availability. Sweet corn accounted for 12%. Other products declined more sharply: per-capita green-pea availability fell from 1.8 pounds in 1970 to 0.6 pounds in 2005, a 67% decrease. Canned-potato availability fell from 1.2 to 0.6 pounds, a 53% decrease; cabbage or sauerkraut fell from 0.9 to 0.5 pounds, a 47% decrease; and asparagus fell from 0.4 to 0.1 pounds, a 68% decrease.
Some 2005 figures have no directly comparable 1970 estimate. Canned chile peppers had 3.7 pounds of per-capita availability and a 9% share of canned vegetables in 2005; the report provides no 1970 estimate for that category. These figures are useful for understanding product mix, but they are not a modern retail scan of household purchase frequency.
Spending by household income
The 2004 BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey figures in the USDA ERS report describe annual per-person spending, not the number of cans bought. The report defined low income as no more than 185% of the poverty level and high income as more than 300% of the poverty level. Middle income is the intervening group in the report’s comparison.
| Income group | Canned fruit per person per year | Canned vegetables per person per year |
|---|---|---|
| Low income | $6.50 | $6.70 |
| Middle income | $8.51 | $13.73 |
| High income | $13.78 | $17.06 |
In 2004, low-income households spent $6.50 per person per year on canned fruit and $6.70 on canned vegetables. Middle-income households spent $8.51 on canned fruit and $13.73 on canned vegetables. High-income households spent $13.78 on canned fruit and $17.06 on canned vegetables (USDA ERS report).
The spending gap was larger for vegetables than for fruit in the reported amounts. The difference between low- and high-income spending was $7.28 per person for canned fruit and $10.36 for canned vegetables. Those comparisons describe the 2004 survey’s expenditure estimates. They do not establish why households spent different amounts, and the report cautions that prices and packaging affect spending.
Spending by demographic group
The same 2004 survey reports per-person annual canned-produce spending by race and ethnicity. White individuals spent $14.95 on canned fruit and $17.53 on canned vegetables. Black individuals spent $13.85 and $14.93, respectively. Hispanic individuals spent $8.54 on canned fruit and $13.83 on canned vegetables. Asian individuals spent $5.01 on canned fruit and $3.61 on canned vegetables. Individuals in the report’s other-races category spent $8.03 and $5.64 (USDA ERS report).
Regional estimates also varied. Northeastern individuals spent $6.20 per person per year on canned fruit and $13.89 on canned vegetables. Midwestern individuals spent $8.85 and $14.95. Southern individuals spent $6.33 and $16.19. Western individuals spent $8.08 and $13.74. These are regional descriptive estimates from 2004, not current regional purchase totals.
Age of household head was associated with higher reported spending in the survey. People in households headed by someone under 40 spent $4.91 per person on canned fruit and $7.42 on canned vegetables. For household heads aged 40–64, the figures were $10.74 and $11.35. For household heads aged 65 or older, they were $16.03 and $18.24.
Household composition showed another difference. Households with children spent $5.44 per person on canned fruit and $10.96 on canned vegetables, compared with $8.22 and $17.02 for households without children. Households with at least one adult aged 65 or older spent $10.32 on canned fruit and $17.76 on canned vegetables. Households without a senior spent $6.39 and $14.12.
Where canned foods were consumed
At-home use data helps distinguish household meal planning from foodservice use. For 2006, the USDA ERS report estimated that 1.55 pounds of fresh-equivalent canned carrots were consumed per person, with 86% consumed at home. Restaurants with waiter service accounted for 7% of canned-carrot use, and school cafeterias accounted for 3% (USDA ERS report).
Earlier 1994–1996 estimates show similarly high at-home shares for some products. At-home consumption accounted for 80% of canned-onion use and 90% of canned-spinach use. The period matters: these figures are not a 2026 estimate of current behavior.
Beans showed a different pattern. About 77% of all dry beans were consumed at home, compared with 29% of canned refried pinto beans. About 71% of canned refried pinto beans were consumed away from home, mostly at fast-food outlets. The comparison is between dry beans overall and a specific canned refried-pinto-bean category, so it should not be generalized to every canned bean product.
The report also found a demographic concentration for pickled cucumbers in 1994–1996: men aged 20–59 represented 27% of the U.S. population but consumed 39% of pickled cucumbers. That is a share-of-consumption comparison, not a household purchasing rate.
The 2023 shelf-stable purchasing context
The most recent figures in this set come from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service report Food-At-Home Purchases by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Households in 2023. Its Circana household scanner analysis covered 51,891 households and approximately $875 million in reported food-at-home spending (USDA FNS report).
The report uses shelf-stable aisle categories, which are broader than canned-only categories. In the 2023 panel, shelf-stable vegetables represented 1.0% of SNAP-household food-at-home expenditure and 1.2% of non-SNAP-household expenditure. Shelf-stable fruit represented 0.8% of food-at-home expenditure for both SNAP and non-SNAP households.
These percentages provide current purchasing context for meal planners, but they should not be combined directly with the older canned-fruit and canned-vegetable availability series. The USDA ERS series uses availability as a consumption proxy, the BLS figures measure per-person spending, and the 2023 results measure scanner-recorded food-at-home expenditure in shelf-stable aisles. The SNAP and non-SNAP comparisons are descriptive and do not establish a causal relationship.