PITTSBURGH, PA — A nonpartisan think tank wants the Federal Trade Commission and/or the Ohio Attorney General's Office to halt Kroger's $1.65 billion acquisition of Cranberry-based Giant Eagle.
The Washington, DC-based American Economics Liberties Project contends the purchase, which would make Giant Eagle a Kroger subsidiary, would result in higher prices, fewer consumer choices and lower employee wages.
An analysis by the organization also asserts that it would speed Kroger's ongoing lucrative sale of shoppers' personal data, such as the products purchased with the use of advantage cards and other information, to outside corporations.
According to Consumer Reports, Kroger's "precision marketing" division - which utilizes that information - made an estimated $450 million in 2023, $527 million in 2024, and could see profits of $825 million in 2027.
The project contends that Kroger is expanding a surveillance operation that now includes everything from facial recognition technology to license plate readers.
"Kroger is turning grocery stores across the country into a corporate panopticon, and with every acquisition, it forces that surveillance on more Americans who have fewer places left to buy their food," Victoria Freire, an American Economics Liberties Project policy analyst, said in a statement.
"Kroger has publicly denied using facial recognition for pricing, but its own privacy policy says it uses the technology for 'security purposes' in select stores. People should be able to pick up groceries without being scanned like suspects."
The organization is asking the Ohio Attorney General's Office to intervene because both Kroger and Giant Eagle have stores in that state. There currently are no Kroger stores in Western Pennsylvania.
Neither Kroger nor Giant Eagle have responded to the report.
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