NGA To Address Antitrust Laws, Economic Discrimination With Congress

Big box retailers and e-commerce giants have reportedly used their influence during the COVID-19 pandemic to further disadvantage independent grocers and the communities they serve. 

That’s the position of the National Grocers Association, which on Tuesday held a press call to detail the efforts to combat what it referred to as economic discrimination. 

Key to that push is the release of a 24-page white paper, which “lays out specific data and stories from independent community grocers across the country, testifying to their struggle to stay competitive during the pandemic.”

According to Chris Jones, SVP of government relations and counsel for NGA, the organization plans to present the report to Congress in the hopes lawmakers will modernize and enforce the federal antitrust laws.

“The white paper incorporates hours of interviews, discussion and feedback that NGA received from its members to explain how the lack of antitrust enforcement has handicapped competition in the grocery sector and harmed American consumers,” Jones said.

Greg Ferrara, president and CEO of the association, said in a statement that independent grocers have had to deal with these “anti-competitive” tactics for years. 

During the call, he noted that such methods “push out independents and leave communities without access to fresh and healthy offerings.”

“A food retail marketplace controlled by a handful of firms flies in the face of America’s free market principles,” Ferrara said. “It discourages entrepreneurship and limits investment in underserved communities, and it harms consumers who rely on a vibrant and robust food supply chain. 

“That’s why it’s time for Congress and the federal government to research the principles of antitrust law, so that it can restore competition to an industry on which every single American relies.”

David Smith, president and CEO of Associated Wholesale Grocers, spoke to their experiences as a cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned grocery stores. He said there is a “misconception” that dominant retailers provide lower prices because they’re more efficient.

“Yes, there are efficiencies of scale. And we, too, buy products in the most efficient way possible by the truckload and in multiple truckloads, just like those largest competitors,” he said. “The issue is purchasing scale, which decades ago was transparent and available to any company that achieved those brackets.