The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) plan to launch an investigation into high grocery prices, FTC Chair Lina Khan said at a meeting on 1 August.
Khan announced at the first virtual public meeting of the Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing that she will ask the FTC to launch an inquiry into grocery prices “in order to probe the tactics that big grocery chains use to hike prices and extract profits from everyday Americans at the checkout counter."
“Too often, people feel like too much of their paycheck is going toward covering the basics, like meat, bread, or eggs,” Khan said, according to Supermarket News.
Even though many of the products consumers purchase most often – such as cereal, pasta, and potatoes – cost less now than they did last year, it still isn’t clear that Americans are getting the competitive, affordable prices they deserve, Khan said.
“Grocery prices skyrocketed during the pandemic, due in large part to higher costs and supply chain disruptions. But, we also know that in the years since, costs have fallen, and supply chains have improved. Many items, though, are still too costly, and many large grocery chains are still raking in enormous profits,” Khan said.
The FTC and the DOJ want to ensure that major businesses “are not exploiting their power to inflate prices for American families at the grocery store,” Khan said, per Supermarket News.
"We’ll continue using all of our tools to expose and crack down on any underhanded tactics that companies may be using to raise prices on the basic things that Americans need the most," she said.
Khan said the FTC and DOJ need to ensure corporations aren’t breaking the law by inflating costs to ensure American families “can be free from economic coercion and indignities in the marketplace.”
As the FTC and DOJ investigate concerns about grocery pricing, seafood prices have fallen every month in 2024. In June, frozen seafood prices declined 4.5 percent year over year, according to data analytics firms Circana and 210 Analytics. Shelf-stable seafood prices also declined 2.6 percent, while fresh seafood prices declined 0.7 percent.
Additionally, overall retail sales data ...
