These Grocery-Store Chains Want to Cripple the FTC

As Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns on tackling skyrocketing grocery prices, two of the country’s largest grocery chains are doing everything they can to merge into a price-gouging behemoth.

As legal proceedings began on Monday, August 26, to stop the merger of Kroger and Albertsons, behind the scenes the companies have spent millions in corporate lobbying, sued to dismantle the country’s long-standing antitrust machinery, and even erased potentially incriminating evidence about “the merger’s anticompetitive impacts,” according to court documents reviewed by the Lever.

If successful, the chains’ efforts might not just raise prices, limit product diversity, and harm workers — they could cripple government agencies working to investigate corporate malfeasance and protect consumer rights.

“Companies raise the stakes of these [antitrust] cases, and they’re basically attempting to intimidate and drain [federal regulators] out of challenging mergers,” said Basel Musharbash, an attorney with the Antimonopoly Counsel, a law firm focused on antitrust and policy issues affecting rural America.

In October 2022, Kroger — the country’s largest supermarket chain — announced an agreement to acquire Albertsons — the country’s second-largest supermarket chain — for $24.6 billion. The merger, if allowed to go through, would create a massive conglomerate of nearly 5,000 stores and 710,000 employees, making it the third-largest private sector employer in the nation, behind Amazon and Walmart.

In February 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the merger, saying that it would lead to less competition, “lower quality products,” and “erase aggressive competition for workers.”

“This…