Revealed: How one food chain giant is duping customers into paying higher costs

14 May

Customer comparing yellow and red bell peppers while shopping for groceries in a supermarket, Image via Shutterstock.

On top of rising grocery prices in the Trump economy, the Guardian reports food chain giant Kroger is quietly imposing extra costs on shopping carts through false advertising.

The Guardian investigation revealed Kroger stores in multiple states “show a pattern of overcharging customers by frequently listing expired sale prices on the shelves and then ringing up the regular prices at checkout — a practice that adds additional burdens onto American families already struggling under the weight of the soaring costs for eggs, meat and other groceries.”

“Almost every single time I go in the store, the listed price of an item is NOT what rings up at the register,” said Ohio resident Allison Hadfield, in a complaint to Ohio’s attorney general. “I want Kroger to stop screwing over people especially when they are the only store in town!”

Shopping tests by Guardian’s media partners found the nation’s second largest grocery retailer using expired tags in 14 of the 26 stores reviewed in Washington DC and 14 states, including Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, Virginia and Ohio. Tests in March, April and May identified more than 150 items with expired sale tags producing average overcharges of “about $1.70 per item.” An 8oz jar of minced garlic listed at a discount price of $2.49 actually cost $3.99 at checkout, providing the store a 60% price jump.

Testers noted instances of expiration dates listed in small print while others were displayed in a corporate code unclear to non-employees. Some customers catch the problem at checkout, but workers and union officials tell the Guardian many busy shoppers don’t notice the overcharges.

On average, the expired discount tags were about two weeks out of date, which allows plenty of time for “thousands of customers” to pay more for what they likely assumed to be discounted items.

In a statement, Kroger said the price tag errors represented “a few dozen examples across several years out of billions of customer transactions annually.”

“While any error is unacceptable, the characterization of widespread pricing concerns is patently false,” Kroger told the Guardian, but the company has a history of price gouging, even in the aftermath of the pandemic years when wallets were arguably tight.

While testifying to a Federal Trade Commission, Kroger Senior Director for Pricing Andy Groff said the grocer had raised prices for eggs and milk beyond inflation levels.

Regarding egg and milk costs, Illinois-based Powers Financial Group founder Drew Powers told Newsweek that companies across multiple industries posted record profits since the COVID-19 crisis, even as consumers faced the highest inflation in recent history.

“As the old saying goes, 'Never let a good crisis go to waste,’” Powers told Newsweek.

Read the full Guardian report here.

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