Gas Prices Are Draining Family Budgets Across Western Wisconsin

La Crosse is the most populated city on Wisconsin’s western border. People travel from Tomah, from Sparta, from towns in Vernon and Crawford counties where the nearest full-service grocery store is a long drive away. They come for Festival Foods, for Woodman's, for ALDI, for things you can't find closer to home. That makes La Crosse's gas prices not just a local issue — they're a round-trip problem for every household in the surrounding region that depends on the city to shop.

At $3.87/gallon — up sharply from the pre-war national average since the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran disrupted global oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz — a 40-mile round trip to La Crosse and back costs noticeably more than it did before February. Crude clearing $100 a barrel moved prices everywhere, including in a river town in western Wisconsin, and those prices are not expected to reverse on any near-term timeline. For a family driving in from a rural area, the gas cost is hitting even harder these days.

Inside the stores, the same fuel costs that hit transportation show up on the shelf. Festival Foods, ALDI, and Woodman's in La Crosse carry the same market-wide price increases: ground beef at $6.90/lb, milk around $3.68/gallon, eggs $3.93/dozen. Woodman's is one of the best-value grocery stores in the region — people come specifically because the prices are lower — but the same energy and supply chain pressures apply. The trucks delivering to Woodman's run on the same diesel as every other truck.

The 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada have driven produce costs higher alongside everything else. Federal Reserve researchers found that retailers pass the full tariff cost through to consumers, so the tariff that applies at the border ends up in the avocado price at Festival Foods. For households in La Crosse who were already stretching a weekly grocery budget, that's another pressure on the same bill.

But the dynamic that makes La Crosse's situation distinctive is the radius. The grocery stores here aren't just serving the city — they're serving a wide swath of rural western Wisconsin that has fewer options and longer drives. The gas to get there, and the prices when you arrive, have both gotten harder to manage. That's a compounding problem that plays out every week for families across western Wisconsin.