When Kroger bought Marianos, the changes were pretty stark. The stores weren’t as clean. The number of employees was reduced. The employees that remained were super stressed out and visibly unhappy. When COVID hit, prices went up and didn’t come back down. Shopping Marianos felt like Whole Foods at the register. Similar shopping at a Woodman’s co-op was noticeably less expensive. I’m not at all surprised to read about their price fuckery. Kroger is a monopoly and exists to increase profits at any cost (to the consumer). I’d say don’t shop a Kroger store, but most people don’t have a choice because Kroger owns the only store in town, and the next town, and the next town. Come to think of it, Kroger is a great reflection of the core issues with United States in general.

I used to shop almost exclusively at Kroger but holy shit they went downhill fast during the Pandemic. It used to be a normal grocery store but at times in the pandemic there would be literally 1 or 2 employees in the entire store, literal trash in the aisles, open packages where people stole things out of them, expired meat and rotting produce. I legitimately don’t know how that store stayed open. It was disgusting. Maybe they noticed how much people were willing to put up with during the pandemic and decided that being the shittiest grocery store in town was a valid business strategy, I’m not sure. If they were cheaper than competitors I’d understand but there are literal discount grocery stores with lower prices in my area that are cleaner and better staffed than Kroger. Im never going to buy food from one again, and I didn’t even get outright scammed like this.