Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is targeting high prices at the grocery store and says she will work to ban “price gouging” for food products and at grocery stores if elected.
But is grocery price gouging a real issue? Is this just about grocery or is it more complicated than that?
Here’s what you think:
Douglas Welty, Business Development Manager at Associated Grocers Baton Rouge (Retired)
How foolish is she, and the rest think we all are. It is more complicated, you have to start from scratch: what it costs from the fields to transportation to the manufacturing to the wholesale to the market to be sold. The grocer only makes pennies on what they sell. This is the case for chains and independent retailers. Then on top of that the government keeps wanting wages to go up, so when you add that to what these guys also are spending on both insurance on the company and healthcare.
Joseph Laflamme, Joe Laflamme Sales & Consulting LLC
It never ends well when governments get involved with consumer pricing. Supermarkets operate on very thin margins and pricing to the consumer is the final step in a long process preceded by agriculture, manufacturing, shipping and warehousing. There would be no way of implementing or enforcing price control on hundreds of thousands of items and Kamala and her Team know this. That is why there are no details to this plan, just a sound bite to appeal to voters who are struggling to pay their bills due to the super inflationary policies of the current administration.
David Franklin, Retail Leader
The central bank, fractional reserve policies, and congress are the sole things to blame for inflation.
Ron Messmer, Manager at Marsh Supermarkets
Look at the supermarket industry as a whole…1% net…this is one of those topics that sound so wonderful but at the end of the day the net margin is razor thin and has been like that for decades. Everyone buys groceries so hey…let’s get these prices down…but competition keeps grocery prices in line without government intervention…politics just education to see reality!!
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