FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director
“Blocking this merger is a crucial step in restoring healthy competition to food retailing,” says ILSR’s Ron Knox.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 10, 2024) – Ron Knox, senior researcher and writer at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), made the following statement in response to Judge Adrienne C. Nelson’s ruling in favor of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) move to block Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons.
“Judge Nelson’s ruling validates what shoppers, small businesses, and labor unions have been saying about this merger all along: The last thing Americans need is more concentration in the grocery industry. As the FTC’s evidence showed, this merger would have allowed Kroger and Albertsons to hike grocery prices even higher, squeeze workers, and muscle aside smaller competitors. It would have put many communities at risk of becoming food deserts.
“This historic ruling marks the first time that the government has blocked a supermarket merger in decades. It shows that the administration’s push to reinvigorate our antitrust laws is succeeding, including, crucially, in the courts.
“We applaud the FTC and the court for seeing through the false promises made by the CEOs of Kroger and Albertsons, and for rejecting their worthless divestiture proposal in favor of stopping the merger outright.
“After decades of allowing corporations to accumulate unchecked power to raise prices, drive down wages for workers, and crush small businesses, today’s decision signals a return to restoring open, competitive markets. Blocking this merger is a crucial step in restoring healthy competition to food retailing. Our food system remains highly concentrated, however, and there is much more that antitrust enforcers need to do, including restoring enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act to prevent price discrimination and ensure that giants, including Walmart, Kroger, and Dollar General, cannot continue to exert their power as dominant buyers to corner the grocery market.”
For more from ILSR on grocery and market power issues, see:
- Stacy Mitchell in The Atlantic: The Great Grocery Squeeze
- Stacy Mitchell in the New York Times: The Real Reason Your Groceries Are Getting So Expensive
- Visualization: The Policy Shift That Decimated Local Grocery Stores
- Report: Boxed Out: How Big Retailers are Flexing Their Supply Chain Power to Kill Off Small Businesses
- Video: Fixing the Food Gap with FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and a panel of community activists, independent grocers, farmer advocates
- Building Local Power podcast with Ron Knox and Kennedy Smith: Cleanup on Aisle 1990
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Photo source: Kroger – Tabb (Kiln Creek), VA