Your Grocery Store Is Now Charging Different People Different Prices — What's Actually Happening

Consumer Reports caught a major grocery delivery platform charging some shoppers up to 23% more for identical items from the same store at the same minute. Meanwhile, Walmart is rolling out price tags that can change up to six times a minute to all 4,600 of its US stores by end of 2026. Kroger has them in nearly one in four stores already.

Today I'm walking through exactly what is happening, which stores have this technology, what 24 states and the federal government are doing about it — and the specific steps you can take right now to protect your grocery budget.

Transcript

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In December of 2025, Consumers Report working with uh Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union ran an experiment at grocery stores across the country. They had dozens of shoppers check prices for the same grocery items at the same store at the same time using Instacars. And what they found was this nearly 75% of grocery items were offered to customers at different prices. When those customers were ordering from the same exact grocery store at the same exact time, the same item, the same store, the same minute, different prices. Up to 23%. Now I want to make sure I'm super precise about this, okay? Because I want to be precise about what it means and what it doesn't mean because it matters here a lot. And I want to give you the accurate picture, not the alarming one. We don't do that here, you know. What happened with Instacart was a third-party delivery platform using AI to charge different shoppers different prices. That is now documented, it's fact, investigated by multiple state attorneys general and the federal government. And it has triggered a wave of legislation across the country. The bigger question right now, though, is what is happening right now when you walk into your grocery store, pick up a product, and look at the price tag. That's what this video is all about. Because those price tags are changing, literally, and the technology that makes variable personalized pricing possible is being installed in Walmart, Kroger, Whole Foods, and Amazon Fresh Stores right now across the country, as we're having this conversation. So let me walk you through what I found out, uh, where this is happening, what the technology can actually do, what legislators across the country are doing about it, and most importantly, what you can do about it. Hello everybody, and welcome to Sutton's Days. If you're new here, my name is Lisa and we are all about pantry preparedness. Let me start with technology because I think understanding it is what makes everything else, you know, make sense. Electronic shelf labels. That's what they are. You may have seen them already without knowing what they were. Uh, quite possible. I know the next time I go to the store, I'm gonna be paying super close attention. They are essentially small digital screens about the size of, you know, the standard grocery store price tag that replace the paper labels on store shelves. Instead of a printed sticker that an employee has to physically peel off and replace, the digital version updates automatically through a wireless network connected to the store's central computer system. Now, on the surface, you know, this sounds straightforward and legitimately useful. Stores can update prices faster, employees do not have to spend hours changing every paper tag, you know. Prices on the shelf match prices at the register without a tag. All of this is true. But here's what else is true. Electronic shelf labels can change prices up to six times in one minute. That's not a typo, it's not an exaggeration. Six times a minute. According to reporting from Buffalo, Toronto Public Media and CNBC, uh, that is the technical capability of the current generation of devices being installed in US stores. What that means practically, the price you saw when you walked into the store might not be the price you see when you walk back down the aisle 10 minutes later. The price you see on the shelf might, in theory, be different from the price at the register when you go to check out. Although both Kroger and Walmart have specifically denied that this is happening. Here's the part that matters most because the system is centralized and digital. It can theoretically change prices based on any data input the retailer chooses. Time of day, day of week, how many people are in the store, which demographic neighborhood the store is in. And this is the part that has legislators, you know, the most concerned. Individual shopper data pulled from loyalty cards, apps, and purchase history. Yeah. All those people out there saying, I'm not giving them my phone number, you know. The technology does not just allow faster price changes, it allows personalized price changes. Whether stores are doing that today, it's it's disputed. The fact that they can is not. Walmart, as of 2026, Walmart is rolling out electronic shelf labels to all 4,600 U.S. store locations by the end of this year. Remember, we're more than halfway through it. That is every Walmart in the United States. They extended their contract with digital label provider Vusion Group in December 2024 specifically to accelerate this. They wanted it done quick. Kroger, nearly one in four Kroger stores nationwide, now uses electronic shelf labels, according to the Cincinnati Inquirer. That is approximately 650 to 700 locations that already have the technology active. Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh already using ESLs across locations. This is perhaps unsurprising given that Amazon, the parent company of Whole Foods, operates one of the world's largest data collection and algorithmic pricing operations. Yeah, try that word. Algorithmic. There you go. Schnux. I've never been to a schnucks. I never even knew there was a schnucks. I would have more fun than anybody could possibly have. Grocery shopping with a store named Schnux, okay? But it's a regional Midwest chain that has also adopted the technology. The global market for electronic shelf labels was estimated at $1.85 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $7.54 billion with a B by 2033, according to uh Grand View Research. This is not a trend that's slowing down, it's accelerating. Now I want to give you the store's own words here because you know it's only fair, right? Kroger has stated that Kroger does not and has never engaged in surge pricing. The tags are only updated to reflect prices seen on the company's website or to align with weekly promotions so customers can count on consistent, reliable information no matter how they shop. Walmart has said that the technology allows employees to update shelf prices using a mobile app, reducing a price change that typically takes an associate two days to a matter of minutes. They have denied using it for surge pricing or individualizing pricing. Both companies say the primary benefit is operational efficiency. And I can see it, it does make sense. Freeing employees from tedious price tag replacement work so they can spend more time helping customers or doing all the other stuff that they have to do. I'm telling you what they said, but I am also telling you what consumers' reports found happening on the Instacart platform, which is a different company but the same ecosystem. And what legislators are concerned about as the technology becomes universal, both things can be true at the same time, my friends. The stores are not currently surge pricing individuals, and the capability now exists in store to do exactly that. Now, let me tell you about the case where personalized pricing at grocery stores was already documented, already confirmed. Not as a you know theoretical concern, but as something that was actually occurring. In December of 2025, Consumers Reports, working with Groundwork Collaborative and the nonprofit More Perfect Union, conducted what they described as a systematic investigation into Instacart's pricing practices. Instacart, for those who don't use it, it's a third-party grocery delivery platform. When you order groceries through Instacart, a personal shopper goes to your local grocery store, uh, a Kroger, a Safeway, a Whole Foods, they even have it at Aldi up by me, uh, and they pick your items and then they deliver them. Somebody's grocery shopping for you, okay? The items are priced through Instacart's app, not directly through the store's register. That's something I never knew. What consumers reports found when multiple shoppers placed identical orders from the same store at the same time through Instacart, they were charged different prices. Nearly 75% of grocery items showed price variation between customers. 75%. The differences reached as high as 23% for the same item. To put that in human terms, if you and your neighbor both walked in, ordered a pound of ground beef from the same Kroger at the same moment on Instacart, one of you might pay $675 a pound and the other might pay $830 a pound. Same beef, same store, same minute, different price. Based on data Instacart had collected about you. A separate analysis found that Instacart's surveillance pricing algorithm could lead to approximately $1,200 more spent on groceries annually for some consumers compared to others. That's not a trivial number, especially with today's pricing. Now, the Consumers Report story landed on December 9th, 2025. The responses were immediate and bipartisan. On December 17th, U.S. Representative Silvia Garcia wrote to Instantcart CEO Chris Rogers, demanding a detailed explanation of the company's pricing practices. In January 2026, the New York State Attorney General Lolita James sent a letter warning Instacart that its disclosures about algorithm pricing, which New York's Algomarithic Pricing Disclosure Act now requires, were buried in fine print and did not comply with the state's transparency law. In March 2026, the House Oversight Committee sent its own letter to Instacart requesting documents about the company's pricing practices. The same committee sent letters to Booking.com, Expedia, Lyft, and Uber. This is not a partisan issue, not at all. In parallel, the California Attorney General opened an investigation. The FTC, which had already launched a surveillance pricing study in July of 24 and issued preliminary findings in January of 25, opened a specific investigation into Instacart's AI pricing tool. And Instacart? They announced that they would stop all item price tests on the platform. Wegmans, one of the grocers that had been participating in Instacart's Markup Optimization Pilot, that is the internal name that they used, discontinued use of the pricing software. The pressure worked, so that's the good news. But the technology, it still exists. And the capability has now moved into physical grocery stores through electronic shelf labels. Because it has long been something in the prepper sphere, right? I want to spend just a moment on like your loyalty cards specifically, because I think most people do not fully understand what they are, why we have to use them. It always irked me. I'm like, just give me the best price to let me out the door, you know. But no, because that doesn't give them the information that they want. When you sign up for, say, a Kroger Plus card, uh a Walmart Plus membership, or any store loyalty program, you are agreeing to share your shopping history with that store in exchange for discounts. Did you know that? Every item you buy, every time you shop, every promotion that you use, all of it goes into a uh profile associated with your account. That profile can tell the store things like how price sensitive you are, whether you buy premium or generic brands, you know, what your household size likely is. I would confuse the snot out of them. Uh, whether you shop more at the beginning or at the end of the month, which can indicate when your paycheck arrives, you know, and what categories of food you buy the most. The FTC's preliminary surveillance pricing study found that companies collecting this kind of data can infer from shopper behavior things like emotional state, uh, purchase intent, financial sensitivity, and then use those inferences to set prices. A shopper who consistently buys the same brand, regardless of whether it's on sale, signals that they are not price sensitive. A shopper who always switches to the cheaper brand when one goes on sale signals that they are. The algorithm prices accordingly. Your loyalty card earns you discounts, right? It also tells the store exactly how much you can be charged before you will change your behavior. And now that information is connected to a price tag that can change six times a minute. Right now, the stores know more about my shopping habits than my husband. Now there is good news because sometimes we just have to make sure there's some good news in here, okay? And and there is genuine good news here. Uh, it's that the legislative response to this has been faster than almost any consumer protection action that I can remember reading. Twour states have now introduced more than 40 bills targeting surveillance pricing. So let me walk you through the specific actions that have actually passed or are most advanced. Maryland, let's start there, the first state to ban it. On April 28th, 2026, Maryland's Governor Westmore signed House Bill 895, the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act, into law. Maryland became the first state in the country to ban surveillance pricing at grocery stores. The law takes effect October 1st, 2026, which is, you know, just a few months away. What this does specifically, it prevents grocery stores, food retailers with locations of 15,000 square foot or larger, and third-party delivery services from using a consumer's personal data to set a higher price specifically for that individual. The law covers tax-exempt foods, meaning your actual groceries, not alcohol or prepared food. What it does not do, it does not prevent stores from raising prices across the board and then offering loyalty discounts to members. The loophole has been noted by consumer advocates because a store could theoretically raise the base price for everyone and then offer a discount to loyalty members, which produces the same outcome through different mechanics. But it's a start and it's the first law of its kind in the country. Next is Connecticut. Broader and stronger. On June 4th, 2026, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed a surveillance pricing ban into law, the second state to do so. Connecticut's law is considered significantly stronger than Maryland's for two reasons. First, it applies to all retail sellers and third-party delivery services, not just food retailers. Second, it includes a disclosure requirement. If a retailer uses surveillance pricing, they must tell you. The disclosure reads this price was set by an algorithm using your personal data. It must say that. New York is interesting because it's actually two separate pieces of legislation at play. First, the Algorithm Pricing Disclosure Act, which took effect November 10th, 2025. This law already requires businesses that use algorithmic pricing to display a clear disclosure near prices reading this price was set by an algorithm using your personal data. This is already law in New York. Second, the One Fair Price Act, which the New York State Legislature passed in June 2026 and sent to Governor Hochel for signature. New York Attorney General Lolita James has publicly campaigned for the governor to sign it, including rallying in the Bronx specifically to advocate for the legislation. So there are states actively pushing the legislation. California, uh Assembly Bill 2564, passed the Assembly and moved to the state Senate. California's version is notable because it threatens fines of $12,500 per violation, making it the most financially significant proposed penalty in the country. New Jersey state legislatures advanced a bill specifically targeting grocery stores' use of surveillance pricing. Senator Joe Cryen stated the bill would protect consumers from being charged higher prices based on shopping habits and personal characteristics. Pennsylvania legislators introduced a similar bill targeting grocery stores. Illinois, Colorado, and more than 20 other states have introduced legislation at various stages. Colorado actually passed a bill, but Governor Jared Polis uh vetoed it in June 2026. Not because he opposed the concept, but because the bill was broader in scope, uh covering workers' wages and many other industries beyond groceries. And he and tech lobbyists argued it was overreaching. At the federal level, uh what the One Fair Price Act was introduced in the Senate by Senator Ruben Gallico of Arizona with co-sponsors from New York and New Jersey. The bill would have prevented companies from using consumers' personal data to set individual prices at a national level. The FTC released preliminary findings from its surveillance pricing study in January 2025 and has continued to investigate. The agency found that the intermediary companies that collect consumer data and provide pricing software work with at least 250 clients, ranging from grocery stores to apparel retailers. Now, uh Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ben Ray Luan and Jeff Merkley specifically named Kroger in letters warning about surveillance pricing risk. New York Attorney General Lolita James has been particularly active, including sending formal investigative letters to Instacart and publicly calling. For action. Again, this is bipartisan. This is not one side versus the other. So don't go there because I'll just delete the comment. Okay. This legislative momentum is real. It's it's real and it's happening at a pretty good pace. In a political environment where, you know, very little moves quickly. The speed of this response from a December 2025 news story to laws in multiple states with six months, uh it's it's genuinely unusual. So, what does this mean for your pantry and your grocery budgets? I'm I'm really glad you asked. Let me connect this to what I talked about on this channel uh every week because I think the connection, I think it's important, and I I don't want it to feel abstract. The unit price is still your absolute best defense. Okay. I covered this in the shrinkflation video uh a couple of weeks ago, and it's directly relevant here. Every grocery store shelf, whether the price tag is paper or digital, is required to show a unit price. Price per ounce, price per pound, price per count, price per, because some of you have mentioned some other unit prices, you know. That number is the most honest number on the shelf. Here's what makes it especially important now to slow down and figure it out. Even if a store is changing the shelf price of a product, the unit price changes with it. You will see the difference. If the price per ounce on your regular pasta jumped from eight cents to 11 cents since last week, the unit price shows you that even if the total package price looks similar because the package got smaller or the price per box stayed, you know, the same on the tag? Check the unit price every single time for every single thing on every category. It doesn't take long, and it's the most reliable price signal available to you at the shelf. So, what about your loyalty cards, right? How many of you use your loyalty cards? Let me know in the comment section. You do not have to stop using your loyalty cards. That's not the message here. The discounts are real, and for most households, they represent genuine savings. But you should understand what you're exchanging those discounts for. Um, I think that's I think that's very important, and that most people do not understand it. A few practical things worth knowing. Most grocery stores allow you to look up your purchase history through your loyalty account. I do this all the time. That is the data that they have on you, in case you didn't get it, okay? Some loyalty programs allow you to limit what data they share with third parties, though this very much varies by chain. It is worth checking your specific store's privacy settings. If you ever see a price at checkout that differs from what it was at the shelf, you have the right to ask for the shelf price. Most states have scanner accuracy laws that require retailers to honor the posted shelf price. Remember that. And if you have a smartphone, take a picture. Now, Instacart and uh grocery delivery apps. This is kind of a bummer for people who use it, you know. If you use Instacart or similar delivery platforms, here is what I would tell you based on what consumers' reports found. Compare the Instacart price to what the same item costs in store at your grocery store before placing the order. Many stores now have their own delivery or pickup apps that you know you can use in-store pricing directly. I don't use Instacart, I use my Walmart app. Now I'm extremely limited on grocery shopping availability here. So I have Walmart and I have the one in town that's at least 25% higher. So yeah, I'm going with Walmart, you guys. You know, so you want to look at the Walmart app or the Walmart site, not the Instacart or comparable app. That doesn't work. These may be less exposed to the kind of third-party algorithmic pricing that Instacart was found to be using. Also, Instacart stopped the specific uh pricing tests that consumer reports documented after the story broke, but the underlying technology and the the broader category of algorithmic pricing remains in use across many platforms. Now, the pantry connection, because we are all about pantry preparedness, right? Here's the thing I keep coming back to when I think about all of this, all of it. The most powerful protection against surveillance pricing is a stocked pantry, my friends. Like there's not enough coming at us, you know. It's it's it has been a crazy uh year so far and a definite crazy, you know, few months. And on top of all of that, now they're gonna try to, you know, charge us more. What? If you only have three days of food in your house, you are a price inelastic shopper. Meaning you got no give. You cannot, you just got no give there, you know. You have to buy what you need when you need it at whatever it costs. That's sad. Seriously, that's just sad. The algorithm reads that correctly. You will pay more, you'll pay more because the data shows that you have no choice. If you have three months worth of food on your shelf, you can walk past the expensive item. You can wait for a better price, you can shop at a different store, or you can skip the shopping trip entirely that week. That's an awesome feeling. You know, that behavioral flexibility is invisible to the algorithm and it protects you from it. Yes, it does. Now, let me give you a specific practical list of what to do based on everything that I just covered. Uh, no vague advice, you know, it actual steps because I think this is important enough to pay attention to, to stop the conspiracy theory stuff that's going around, and to have actionable steps to protect yourself. The next time that you go to your regular grocery store, look at the price tags on the shelf. Are they paper or are they digital? If they are small digital screens, okay, typically with a small display that shows the price and sometimes the product code, your store has already made the switch. Knowing whether your store uses ESLs tells you what the capability is at your location. It does not mean the store is using it for personalized pricing. Let me make that clear. It does not mean that they're doing that. Neither Kroger nor Walmart says that they are. But it tells you the infrastructure is there, so it's something that you need to pay attention to. Now, a little investigative work. If you're looking for a day trip, something to do, you know, on a rainy day. If you use your store's app or Instacart before shopping, screenshot the prices of your regular items before you go to the store. Screenshot what Instacart or the app says, and then compare them to what it actually is at the store. You know, those uh prices on the shelf when you arrive should be the same as the prices that you're shown that you screenshot. Another big one that I have noticed a lot of people don't do. A lot of people don't do as I'm watching people at the store, you know, when everyone's cashing out. Scan your receipt before you leave the store. Doesn't take but a hot minute, okay? Just scan the receipt before you leave the store. I am amazed at the sheer number of people that don't do that, that don't even want a receipt. Nah, I don't need it, or they just put it away, stuck it in, you know, stick it in a pocket or something. That that's not good anymore. This is a good practice to scan the receipt regardless of whether your store has ESLs. Doesn't matter. Scan the receipt before you leave the parking lot, compare a few key items to what you remember seeing on the shelf, or maybe you took a screen, you know, a picture of it with your phone just to remember. If anything looks different, go back into the service desk. Put a cooler in your car so your ice cream doesn't melt. You know what I mean? Scanner accuracy laws in most states require the store to honor the shelf price. And I believe that there are some laws out there where you can get more than that back due to the error. One thing that you want to try to do is you want to know your state's status on this issue. You want to do a little bit of research. I can't do it for every single state, you guys. Do some research. Uh, for example, Maryland. If you shop in Maryland, okay, the Protection Forum Predatory Pricing Act takes effect October 1st, 2026. Starting on that date, food retailers are legally prohibited from using your personal data to charge you a higher price than another shopper. So you're gonna need to do some some homework for where you live, but see if you've got something you know going on or something coming down the pike. Now you want to reconsider, and I know this will be difficult, third-party delivery apps at your regular grocery shop. And for some people, I understand this is gonna be difficult, okay? Instacart has said it's stopped the specific uh pricing tests, consumer reports documented. But if you are doing your regular weekly grocery shop through a third-party app, you may want to consider whether the convenience is worth the pricing uncertainty. And for some people, it it may be. So that that's a decision that only you can make. Most major grocery chains now have their own delivery or curbside pickup services that use in-store pricing directly. Kroger's own app, Walmart's own pickup and delivery, Publix, uh, HEB, Curbside. You know, these are all uh they they cut out the third-party platform and the algorithmic pricing layer that goes with it. And I know that it's inconvenient sometimes, and I know that, like for Walmart, you know, you have to tip them, you have to tip everybody. You should tip everybody, you know, but um it's gonna play a factor in your your decisions and what you decide you're gonna do. Now, definitely take some time and review your loyalty card privacy settings. Log into your grocery store loyalty account and look for privacy settings. Most stores have a section where you can see what data is collected and in some cases limit what is shared with third-party advertising or pricing partners. Now, I'm not telling you to cancel your loyalty cards. The discounts are often real and meaningful. I am telling you to understand what you are trading for them and check whether you have options to limit the data sharing. As always, as always, build your buffer, my friends. Build your buffer. This is the one I want to close on because it is the most actionable and the most powerful. We have control with this simple action of building a buffer, building a pantry. The shopper who has at least a three-month pantry buffer is not the shopper the algorithm is designed to exploit. They're just not. The algorithm maxes revenue from shoppers who must buy. The shopper who can wait, who can shop elsewhere, or skip the trip entirely, is the one the store cannot price gouge. Yeah. Everything I have been covering, you know, for the last few months, the wheat crop, the El Nino forecast, the you know, the price increases, you know, since 2019, all of it points to the same conclusion. The pantry buffer is your protection against everything. It's the best insurance money can buy. Total self-promotion. Check out my book on Amazon. Okay, supply shocks, prices, and price increases, uh, shrinkflation, and now surveillance pricing. Now I want to close with this right here. Okay, Kroger and Walmart have both explicitly denied electronic shelf labels for surge pricing or individual pricing. Kroger's own statement says prices are only updated to match their website or weekly promotions. Walmart says the same. A study published in SSRN in June of 2025 looked at five years of price data at Kroger and Walmart after ESL implementation and found, quote, virtually no surge pricing, with temporary price certain price surges uh affecting only 0.0042% of products. Now, what I described with Instacart was a third-party delivery platform, not the stores themselves. Instacart stopped those tests. So here's the accurate framing. The concern is about capability and trajectory, not confirmed current practice at the store level. The technology to do it at scale now exists in your grocery store. It has already been used by a major platform in the grocery ecosystem. Legislators across the country on both sides of the aisle are moving quickly to establish guardrails before capability is used more broadly. How sad that this has to be done, you know? That's the honest picture. Uh, the alarm is about what could happen as this technology matures and becomes universal. Uh, not a confirmed accusation of what is happening at your Kroger today. Knowing that distinction is part of what makes this channel different from your fear-based content. That's not what I want to do. I want facts. You notice this is the first time I've talked about this, okay? I want you informed, not alarmed. There's enough people out there alarming you. The practical steps that I gave you to protect you in either scenario are there. I hope that you will take a minute, think this through, take the steps that I uh recommend to protect yourself. Build your buffer, my friends. And until next time, keep stacking it to the rafters.