I'm gonna value national stats over unsourced anecdotal assertions.

At no point has the US entered deflation so far this millennium.

The US did have deflation in the fourth quarter of 2008:

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/economics/deflation

Of course this is talking about the overall price level. The prices in specific sectors can fluctuate independently of that. Food and energy in particular are excluded from core inflation because they're especially volatile.