Today @ 2:30 PM: Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens Testifying at Senate Banking Subcommittee Hearing on Food Prices and Profiteering

Read her written testimony here, and watch the hearing here. 

Today at 2:30 pm, Groundwork Collaborative’s Executive Director Lindsay Owens will testify before the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy at a hearing titled, “Protecting Consumers’ Pocketbooks: Lowering Food Prices and Combatting Corporate Price Gouging and Consolidation.”

In her testimony, Dr. Owens will unveil new research on corporate price gouging including surveillance technologies grocers use to track competitors’ prices and algorithmic price-fixing schemes in meatpacking. She’ll also discuss how companies like Walmart, America’s largest grocer, are increasingly spinning out retail media companies to sell grocery shoppers’ data alongside groceries.

What: Protecting Consumers’ Pocketbooks: Lowering Food Prices and Combatting Corporate Price Gouging and Consolidation

Who: Senate Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA (Chair)
• Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA (Ranking Member)
• Dr. Lindsay Owens, Groundwork Collaborative
• Dr. E.J. Antoni, The Heritage Foundation
• Dr. Norbert J. Michel, Cato Institute
• Joe Maxwell, Farm Action
• Alap Vora, Concord Market owner and Small Business Majority Network Member

When: Today, Wednesday, May 22, 2024 @ 2:30 p.m. ET

Where: Dirksen Senate Office Building 538. Watch live here.

Highlights from Dr. Owens’ Testimony:

• “[A] cottage industry of pricing data service providers like Datasembly, Revionics, and DemandTec are using big data collection, predictive technologies, and artificial intelligence to track prices on products down to the individual store level to help their food producer and retail clients get ‘faster, lasting implementation of price increases,’ ferret out when they are inadvertently keeping prices ‘too low for too long,’ ‘more quickly react’ to competitors’ pricing, and ensure their price hikes ‘stick.’”
• “Technological innovations such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and surveillance targeting have enabled companies to collect reams of data on their competitors and their customers. They can use this data to facilitate collusion and price fixing or simply to accelerate their ability to hike prices and maximize profits.”
• “Market power and technological advances have come together in the shadow of the pandemic, when inflation gave companies the cover they needed to start rolling out mercenary pricing strategies they’d previously only dreamed of implementing. Any concerns CEOs may have had over damaging reputations and losing market share by executing their most egregious pricing tactics evaporated.”
• “Techniques like skimp- and shrinkflation, as well as new algorithmic and personalized pricing, make it even harder for consumers to gauge when they’re being overcharged. Now, supply chains are effectively restored, but prices have stayed locked at levels that were only justifiable under conditions of a global health crisis. Companies that were quick to pass along their rising costs to consumers have been slower to pass along their savings.”
• “High food costs are taking a toll on Americans, particularly low-income ones. Food is a necessity, not a luxury, and when grocery profiteering and price gouging are spiking food prices, Congress must act. American families can’t afford to wait and see if the Chair of the Federal Reserve manages to bring down prices: Dinner needs to be on the table tonight.”