Your grocery store keeps a secret file on you, built from every trip where you scanned your loyalty card.
One Kroger shopper asked to see his, and it came back a whopping 62 pages long.
About a third of Kroger's profit doesn't come from selling groceries, but from selling this data it collects on you.
Congress noticed
That fact came up in Washington last month at a Senate hearing on companies that use your personal information to give you a personalized price. Kroger was the main example. Its name was on the sign behind the witness table.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who ran the hearing named “Your Data, Their Profit: The Consumer Cost of AI Surveillance Pricing,” put it plainly: "Kroger is not just a grocery store, though it is certainly that, one of the largest. It is a data-selling mega corporation."
Then he put a number on it. "Last year, Kroger earned over $500 million from selling (yes, selling) the data that it harvests from its loyal customers," Hawley said. "Do you know that accounts for 33% of its net income last year?"
And this wasn't one senator on a soapbox; both parties agreed on the problem. Over two hours, four of the five witnesses and every senator who spoke described AI-driven personalized pricing as something American shoppers are now exploited by, and most don’t even know it.
What this means for you
If you shop at Kroger, the company is probably collecting information about you: what you buy, when you buy it, how much money it thinks you earn, what might be going on in your life.
The concerning part is what happens next. Kroger has built AI-driven technology that could use your own data to determine the highest price you’ll pay –– then charge you that price. It’s already offering “personalized discounts” that mean you could get access to fewer deals than your neighbor, based on information Kroger has about you that may or may not be accurate.
It sounds like science fiction, but it isn't. A former chief data officer at Visa testified before the Senate that surveillance pricing already costs the typical American household roughly $1,800 a year.
Three problems, in shoppers' own words
Sen. Hawley called surveillance pricing "the unholy trinity of everything Americans hate: spying on people, ripping them off, and taking away jobs."
More than 2,000 shoppers have written to us. Their stories line up with all three.
The spying. One Kroger shopper in Texas told us: "What at first seemed innocent… I now see as an absolute invasion of my privacy. They are tracking me! I feel like a bug under their corporate microscope."
The overcharging. Hundreds of people tell us the register prices often don’t match what’s on the shelf. Consumer Reports found the same: at 26 Kroger-owned stores in 14 states, expired sale tags overcharged shoppers on more than 150 items — about 18 percent on average.
The jobs. A Kroger worker told us why that keeps happening: "I work at Kroger and the problem with items ringing up wrong is because they cut hours. They don't have enough people doing tags."
Kroger's fix isn't more workers
Rather than hire more workers to make sure price tags stay up to date, Kroger is turning to a tech “fix” that could bring shoppers even more headaches. It's replacing paper tags with electronic price tags: small digital screens that let Kroger change a price in seconds from a computer, based on the time of day, the weather, or whatever else it decides matters.
Flu going around? Electronic price tags could let Kroger raise the price of cold medicine right when families need it most.
Kroger says it isn't doing this today. But it stops there.
Kroger denies using these digital price tags to jack up prices and take advantage of customers. "Kroger does not and has never engaged in surge pricing," a company executive has said, and Kroger says it has no plans to use facial recognition technology to raise prices for individual customers.
But it won't go any further. Kroger has not promised that an item will carry one price, in one store, on one day, or that it will never set a price based on what its file says about you.
And it has spent millions building the exact setup it would need — the shopper files, the digital tags, deals with big tech companies. Nobody spends that kind of money building a machine they don't plan to use.
Why people are skeptical
Kroger's own record is part of it. At a separate trial, an email from Kroger’s top pricing executive came out: "On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation." In plain English: prices went up more than costs did, and they raked in record profits.
The same executive also admitted Kroger charged higher prices in “no-competition” zones: places where shoppers have few other grocery options. Kroger blamed higher shipping and labor costs.
The equipment is in place. The reasons are on the record. Right now, the only thing standing between shoppers and a high price set just for them is Kroger's word.
Some lawmakers aren't waiting to find out what that word is worth. At least 11 states introduced bills on this in 2026, and bills backed by both parties are moving in Congress. Most states (including Ohio, where Kroger is based) still have nothing on the books to protect customers from these shady practices.
Kroger is watching its shoppers. It's time shoppers watched back.
Spying, overcharging, and cutting the jobs of the people who keep Kroger running. Thousands of shoppers and workers have already told us what that looks like from inside the store. Tell us your story at KrogerHurtsFamilies.com.
Sources
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing transcript, "Your Data, Their Profit: The Consumer Cost of AI Surveillance Pricing" — Rev (Aug. 4, 2026)
ICYMI: Hawley Exposes Predatory AI Surveillance Pricing, Consumer Data Harvesting in Subcommittee Hearing — Office of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (Aug. 5, 2026)
Written testimony of Robert Hedges — U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Aug. 4, 2026)
"The Number Was Set for an Audience of One": Inside the Senate's Surveillance Pricing Hearing — Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (Aug. 25, 2026)
Inside Kroger's Secret Shopper Profiles: Why You May Be Paying More Than Your Neighbors — Consumer Reports
Kroger Stores Overcharging Shoppers on Sale Items, CR Price Check Finds — Consumer Reports
Kroger executive admits company gouged prices above inflation — Newsweek
Kroger's mountain town pricing strategy under scrutiny in Colorado merger trial — Denver Gazette
Kroger says it has no plans to use facial recognition after uproar about surge pricing in grocery stores — Fast Company
Surveillance Pricing Legislation Gains Momentum as States Wrap Up 2026 Sessions — ICSC
