Washington DC — Today, the American Economic Liberties Project released “Big Grocery is Watching You: Kroger’s Giant Eagle Acquisition Would Expand Surveillance Reach,” a new brief showing how the $1.65 billion merger would bring higher prices, fewer choices, hurt independent grocers, and lower wages, while accelerating Kroger’s transformation into what Senator Josh Hawley called a “data-selling megacorporation.” Kroger isn’t just buying stores. It’s buying shoppers’ personal data and 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,” said Victoria Freire, Policy Analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project. “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.”

“Kroger’s never ending quest to get bigger isn’t just an Ohio problem. It’s part of a nationwide push by corporate goliaths to gobble up more of our economy, charge higher prices and monitor our every move,” said Morgan Harper, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Regulators need to lay down the law and stop Kroger from getting bigger, more powerful, and more invasive at the expense of ordinary American consumers and their workers.”

Key findings:

• Kroger is buying data, not just stores. The deal hands Kroger Giant Eagle’s loyalty-card records. Kroger’s “precision marketing” division, which turns shopper data into marketing products for other companies, earned an estimated $527 million in profit in 2024, according to Consumer Reports.
• The surveillance goes beyond your receipt. Kroger’s privacy policy, updated online in September, discloses that it collects facial recognition data from shoppers at select stores and that its cameras can capture license plates.
• Columbus is ground zero. Kroger already controls 43% of the Central Ohio grocery market. The deal would give it nearly half, and in three places a Giant Eagle sits directly across the street from a Kroger.
• Workers lose leverage. Fewer competing employers means less bargaining power, and Kroger has a history of mass closures, including shutting all 45 of its Pittsburgh stores after a 1984 strike.
• Divestitures won’t fix it. Divested supermarkets are substantially more likely to close, cut jobs, or lose sales under new owners.

The brief calls on policymakers to:

• Block the merger, through action from the Ohio Attorney General and/or FTC. 
• Resume enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act to level the playing field for grocers of all sizes.
• Ban surveillance pricing through bills like the Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act of 2025 and the One Fair Price Act of 2025.
• Pass state laws, like New York’s Consumer Grocery Pricing Fairness Act, giving enforcers new tools against price discrimination.

Read the full analysis here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.