Report Says Illinois Grocery Store Chain Admits to Price Gouging

If you've noticed that the price of certain products seem to be rising at an abnormal rate, you're not alone and there's a new report that could explain why. An Illinois grocery store chain has admitted to price gouging based on a blockbuster new report.

According to Kroger's own website, the chain has 31 locations in Illinois across 25 different cities in the Land of Lincoln. They are the chain named by the website Common Dreams that alleges a Kroger executive in an antitrust trial admitted to price gouging.

What proof is there that Illinois Kroger stores price gouged customers?

The Common Dreams report says that there was an internal Kroger email that alluded to the price of milk and eggs not being proportionate to the costs the chain was paying. The quote says "retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation".

It's important to note that Kroger has stated that the email that was quoted was not official store policy and was "cherry-picked". A report shared on X/Twitter says that a Bloomberg report shows this practice was going on as far back as 2021.

The Bloomberg report specifically mentioned Illinois saying 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". When other Illinois stores would reduce egg prices, the report claims that Kroger didn't and kept the prices higher.

It will be interesting what other revelations come out of the antitrust hearing involving Kroger and practices that allegedly were unfair to consumers.