Vice President Kamala Harris has said she will ban price gouging at grocery store chains if elected to lead the country.
"Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades," Harris said during an August rally in Raleigh, N.C. "And while many grocery chains pass along these savings, others still aren't."
Harris is right that grocery stores are seeing bigger profits since at least 2005, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The Harris campaign pointed us to a report by the Federal Trade Commission that said, "Some firms seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further hike prices to increase their profits, and profits remain elevated even as supply chain pressures have eased."
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The FTC has an ongoing investigation into what role price gouging might be playing.
But the Food Industry Association says profits are slimmer than you might think, at just 1.6%.
Jason Miller, professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, says he's seen no evidence of price gouging on a large scale.
"When we step back and look at the data, there just really isn't a narrative that I can see to say that grocery stores are somehow extra profitable," Miller said.
Shoppers have been paying more at the checkout line since the pandemic, which caused supply chain consolidation that still affects the grocery industry.
So truth be told, this claim is mixed.
Harris' assertion is true that grocery store profits are at their highest in almost two decades.
But multiple sources suggest grocers' costs are also up.
And there's not evidence, at least yet, to show a widespread problem of grocers engaging in price gouging.
