Press Release: 2024-10-04
Pressley, Warren, McGovern, Markey Push Stop & Shop Parent Company on Price Gouging Concerns in Mass. Communities
Study found significant price differences between different communities in the Commonwealth, indicating Stop & Shop may be price-gouging working-class neighborhoods
“It is shameful that Stop & Shop appears to be engaging in corporate profiteering schemes that squeeze residents and families in Massachusetts”
BOSTON – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), along with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), and Congressman James P. McGovern (MA-02), sent a letter to Frans Muller, CEO of Ahold Delhaize—parent company of Stop & Shop—demanding information on reports of price disparities at store locations in Massachusetts. Specifically, the lawmakers are concerned that Stop & Shop’s potential use of pricing algorithms is leading to price gouging, resulting in higher prices in minority and working class communities in Massachusetts.
A group of Boston youth volunteers at the Hyde Square Task Force led a 2023 investigation that revealed pricing discrepancies between Stop & Shop locations in Massachusetts. The study found that Stop & Shop was charging 18% more for groceries in a largely minority and working-class area of Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, compared to the store location in Dedham, a more affluent suburb.
“These types of price discrepancies place significant burdens on already-struggling consumers,” wrote the lawmakers.
The median household income for the census tract of the area surrounding the Jamaica Plain Stop & Shop is $35,900 per year. Due to the high prices at the Jamaica Plain location, some families from Jamaica Plain could be forced to spend thousands of dollars extra annually on groceries.
This is just one example of a larger trend of price gouging that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Stop & Shop’s actions appear to reflect a problem of opportunistic and sometimes-predatory pricing practices by major food and grocery corporations in the United States,” wrote the lawmakers. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, large corporations across the economy took advantage of supply chain disruptions to prey on consumers by raising prices by even more than necessary to cover increases in costs. Nearly two years later, corporations’ production costs are down and their profits are ballooning, yet prices continue to climb–suggesting a pattern of corporate profiteering.”
The lawmakers are requesting information from Stop & Shop on the pricing algorithms used by the company, the reasons for price differences at different stores, and any steps taken to lower prices and improve consistency across all 124 Massachusetts locations.