During antitrust trial, exec admits Kroger jacked up milk and egg prices above inflation

A top Kroger executive admitted under questioning from a Federal Trade Commission attorney on Tuesday that the grocery chain raised its egg and milk prices above the rate of inflation, a concession that came as no surprise to economists who have been highlighting corporate price gouging across the U.S. economy in recent years.

Andy Groff, Kroger's senior director for pricing, said during a court hearing on the FTC's legal challenge to the company's proposed acquisition of Albertsons—its primary competitor—that Kroger's objective is to "pass through our inflation to consumers."

Groff's comment came in response to questioning about an internal email he sent to other Kroger executives in March. In that note, Groff observed that "on milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation."

A Kroger spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement that the email was "cherry-picked" and "does not reflect Kroger's decadeslong business model to lower prices for customers by reducing its margins."

But Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, noted Wednesday that "execs all over the economy were saying this stuff on their earning calls back in 2021."

"This was not a secret," Mabud added.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that "in Illinois, where Kroger operates the Mariano's chain, company executives create a weekly report on egg prices, comparing prices from Walmart, Meijer Inc., and Albertsons' Jewel-Osco, said Matthew Marx, president of the Kroger division overseeing Mariano's."

"The FTC walked Marx through several of the weekly egg reports from 2022 and 2023," the outlet added. "In May 2022, for example, both Walmart and Meijer dropped egg prices by 14 cents a dozen, but Mariano's opted to keep its pricing the same to match the higher price at Jewel-Osco, Marx said. A year later, in April 2023, as egg prices again soared, Mariano's opted to keep its pricing near Jewel-Osco's even as Walmart was lowering its own."

The U.S. grocery sector—dominated by Kroger, Walmart, and a handful of other major companies—profited hugely during the Covid-19 pandemic as corporate giants exploited supply chain disruptions to aggressively jack up prices.

"The grocery industry, as represented by four of its largest players, became more profitable in the pandemic, and it has stayed that way for a couple of years at least," The Financial Times noted Monday. "It is a good guess that price increases in excess of cost increases have played a role in this."

In its legal challenge against Kroger's proposed merger with Albertsons, the FTC argues that the deal would further drive up costs for consumers by eliminating "fierce competition" between the two grocers.

Laurel Kilgour, research manager at the American Economic Liberties Project, said after opening arguments in the case earlier this week that the FTC "previewed concrete evidence that a Kroger-Albertsons merger would lead to higher prices for millions of Americans and worse working conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers."

"By contrast, lawyers for Kroger and Albertsons touted fake promises of utopian outcomes that are not legally enforceable. Indeed, Albertsons has a track record of profiting from similar fake promises that turned out disastrously for competition and for communities, and this time is no different," Kilgour continued. "At a time when working families are especially concerned with costs and access to food, we need more—not less—competition between grocery stores on prices, wages, the freshness of produce, and service quality."