Attorney General Tong Announces Next Steps in Grocery Pricing Inquiry

Press Releases

10/30/2025

Attorney General Tong Announces Next Steps in Grocery Pricing Inquiry

Grocery Costs Remain Stubbornly High as Trump Administration Denies Lifeline to Hundreds of Thousands in Connecticut

(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong sent a letter to five of the top food distributors with footprints in Connecticut, expanding the state’s inquiry into unaffordable grocery prices that have remained stubbornly high since initial spikes during the COVID pandemic.

Attorney General Tong first launched the inquiry into Connecticut grocery prices in 2024 at the request of state legislators seeking to understand the root causes of price spikes, to assess whether price gouging or other unfair practices were contributing to the high costs, and to inform policymakers seeking to address affordability and food access in Connecticut.

In a letter today to legislative leaders, Attorney General Tong shared background on the inquiry, descriptions of the information sought, the responses and discussions in response, conclusions based on the information gathered to date, and next steps to address and understand persistently high food prices in Connecticut.

To date, based on information provided and discussions with the grocers, the inquiry has identified no immediately apparent evidence of illegal pricing at the retail level. Evidence reviewed indicates the need to expand the inquiry up the supply chain to understand more fully additional pricing pressures and to assess whether anyone in those roles may have unfairly profited.

“No one needs a report to see that grocery prices are way too high and that Connecticut families are getting squeezed. Our inquiry has found no obvious evidence to date of price gouging by Connecticut retail grocers, only that they are likely getting squeezed by the same unsustainable market forces hurting consumers. This includes supply chain disruptions due to conflicts abroad, bird flu outbreaks, rising costs of business, and now the needless added pressures of Trump’s illegal and unconscionable suspension of SNAP benefits, tariffs wars and immigration raids that will only make all our lives more unaffordable. We are continuing our inquiry up the supply chain and will not hesitate to use the full weight of our enforcement authority against any unlawful profiteering and federal overreach harming consumers,” said Attorney General Tong.

Price Gouging in Connecticut

During civil preparedness and public health emergencies, price gouging is against Connecticut law. Acting in coordination with the Department of Consumer Protection, the Office of the Attorney General may file suit against price gougers and seek appropriate relief, including injunctive terms, restraining orders, restitution, and civil financial penalties designed to deter future unscrupulous sales. Until recently, the price gouging statute applied only to retail sales. Attorney General Tong successfully sought legislation this past session to expand the price gouging statute to distributors, wholesalers and others up the supply chain.

There is currently no active civil preparedness or public health emergency; the price gouging statute is not triggered at this time.

Grocery Prices in Connecticut

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated supply chain disruptions, shortages, and major price hikes throughout the American markets, including at the food retail level. While the pandemic abated, grocery prices remained stubbornly high across the country, including in Connecticut.

Those trends were documented in a report by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) in March 2024 that was inconclusive as to the causes of persistent high food prices. Based on the findings in the FTC staff report, coupled with significant public concerns about the cost of food for Connecticut families, and discussions with legislators, the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General sent inquiries to retailers representing ten grocery chains in in Connecticut. The Office of the Attorney General initially requested information about the wholesale cost and corresponding retail price for nine commonly purchased food items between March 2019 and June 2024. These staple items were beef, chicken, bread, milk, eggs, bananas, apples, carrots and almonds. In addition, the Office of the Attorney General asked for “private label” prices for eggs and milk. The review sought to identify profit trends and anomalies over time which would suggest one or more retailers took in extraordinary profits based solely on the unprecedented crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus.

Retailers also shared their perspectives relative to conditions and factors contributing to rising prices, including higher costs for transportation fuel, increased security, labor and energy costs. Retailers also described conditions linked to the pandemic, including supply shocks and shortages impacting contracts with suppliers. Retailers also reported the impact of bird flu outbreaks and fires in poultry facilities impacting egg prices. Retailers also flagged rising wheat prices tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Food retailers historically operate with low profit margins. The food retail industry reports that since 2019, its margins have been between 1% and 3%. Such low profit margins leave little room for food retailers to absorb price increases passed down from their suppliers and still operate at a profit. Data reviewed by the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General indicates that after the COVID-19 pandemic began, retailers continued to follow the low profit-margin business model. The Office of the Attorney General did not identify evidence of enhanced or extraordinary profit margins at the retail level indicative of price gouging in violation of Connecticut law.

Additional Factors Impacting Grocery Prices

Data gathered for this review was received prior to the Trump Administration’s imposition of sweeping tariffs impacting numerous aspects of the grocery supply chains. Due to the timeline of this review, this report did not seek to analyze the impact of tariffs on Connecticut grocery prices, although those costs and impacts to businesses and consumers have been widely reported. Nor did this analysis seek to assess the widely reported impact of the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement actions on the agricultural labor supply and the cost of domestic food production.

Further, the report was drafted prior to the Trump Administration’s unlawful and unconscionable suspension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits during the ongoing federal government shutdown, leaving 42 million Americans to shoulder the rising cost of groceries without vital federal assistance. Thus far in 2025, an average of approximately 366,000 people received SNAP benefits in Connecticut each month, including approximately 215,000 families and 120,000 children. Households in Connecticut receive on average $324 per month in SNAP benefits to meet their basic subsistence and nutritional needs. Attorney General Tong and a coalition of 21 other attorneys general and three governors sued on Tuesday and are seeking a temporarily restraining order to immediately force release of the funds.

These combined factors will undoubtably increase pressures on Connecticut families and businesses, and will made it all the more imperative that Connecticut as a state explore every possible avenue to drive down costs and protect our economic interests.

Next Steps

Although the Office of the Attorney General found no immediate evidence of illegal pricing at the retail level, there remains more work to do to investigate potential price gouging behavior. The evidence reviewed indicated the need to expand our inquiry to other parties further up the food supply chain to determine whether anyone in those roles inappropriately realized outsized profits during the last state of emergency.

Letters sent today request meetings with the executives of five major to discuss factors impacting persistently high food prices in Connecticut. The letters also seek information on another factor contributing to price increases—shrinkflation. a strategy used by manufacturers which involves reducing the size or quantity of a product while the price remains the same. Attorney General Tong previously sought legislation to require suppliers to provide a clear and conspicuous notice for at least twelve months when reducing the quantity, amount, weight or size of a product without making a corresponding reduction to price.

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Media Contact:

Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov

Consumer Inquiries:

860-808-5318
attorney.general@ct.gov