Today, we’re diving into a hot topic that’s been making waves—price gouging, especially when it comes to groceries, and what’s really going on behind the scenes. Vice President Kamala Harris has been talking tough on this issue, but not everyone is convinced, including the CEO of a well-known grocery chain, Stew Leonard Jr.
In a recent interview on FOX Business’s “The Evening Edit,” Stew Leonard Jr. set the record straight on the claims of price gouging that have been floating around.
Harris’s campaign has been pushing the narrative that big corporations are unfairly jacking up prices on food and groceries to make excessive profits, even promising to push for a federal ban on such practices if she’s elected. But Leonard Jr., who’s been in the grocery business for decades, has a different perspective.
“I haven’t met anybody price gouging,” Leonard Jr. said, addressing the claim head-on. He acknowledged that prices have indeed gone up, but not because of some sinister plot to gouge consumers. Instead, it’s about the rising costs that farmers, ranchers, and suppliers are facing across the board.
“Our farmers and our ranchers have been reflecting their price increases that they’ve had, which has elevated food prices over the last two, three years now,” he explained. This isn’t news to anyone who’s been paying attention—fuel, energy, and gas prices have all shot up, and that’s had a ripple effect throughout the entire supply chain.
Leonard Jr. pointed out that the suppliers he deals with aren’t calling him up with artificially inflated prices. They’re simply passing on the increased costs they’re facing themselves. “They’re not calling me up and trying to artificially increase their prices, they’re calling me because their prices are going up,” he said.
As for Harris’s proposed plan to regulate grocery prices to prevent price gouging, Leonard Jr. expressed some skepticism. While he acknowledged that a small percentage of companies might have taken advantage of the situation during COVID, he made it clear that most businesses have been raising prices out of necessity, not greed.
And when it comes to government regulation of grocery prices, Leonard Jr. had some practical advice: let the market do its job.
“One thing I’ve learned in my 50 years of retailing in our family business, if you raise prices, guess what happens to sales—they go down,” he noted, emphasizing that the market naturally balances itself out, except in the luxury sector where brands like Gucci or Prada operate under different rules.
