Obviously yes. Their production costs barely rose but their prices skyrocketed. Here's a Forbes article from 2022 pointing out that it was increased profit margins causing most of the inflation:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2022/09/12/how-profit-inflation-made-your-groceries-so-damn-expensive/?sh=1608bd462eb9

This is just capitalism working as intended. The fact that these price increases are being sold as some kind of abnormality is some real neolib brain in action. It isn't "greedflation," it's literally the same capitalism we've lived with for centuries.

Of course they did. We know they did. All you have to do is go back and read their quarterly earnings calls from 2020 to basically now and they told their shareholders clearly that they were using the pandemic as an excuse to increase profits.

So are they going to have to pay it back or did the FTC make a report for nothing?

... you can't seriously build a system that is meant to take advantage of every situation, praise if for taking advantage of every situation, align it's interests in taking advantage of every situation and then be surprised it took advantage of a situation. We should be better than Pikachu.

Why are people acting surprised? That is just the invisible hand of the market. Isn’t this the unfettered capitalism we asked for?

It's ethical to steal from these grocery chains.

Next: sky is blue

Everyone keeps saying this is capitalism and its true. Companies squeezing everyone when they're vulnerable for more profits.

Consumers need protections for things like basic needs so we don't struggle just to survive.

Food and housing should be protected. Luxury brands can get all the profit they want.

Don't touch my fucking groceries and rent!

Is this even news, ofc they did, give them an inch and they always take a mile, war, recessions and sickness are always a profiteering venture for business.

Nothing happens to Corporations around here. It was pretty clear it was greed even before the data hit.

You fucking bet and it sure as hell isn't limited to grocery stores.

I love all the headlines that declare [report about thing you already figured out years ago] was in fact true, like it's a fucking surprise. Some would say it's good to have corroborating data, but it never seems to help and I'm just exhausted being right so dammed often.

It's fair, though. They raised the salaries of the people who worked there.

Right?

Fuck you talking about? They haven’t come down!

Okay? Now fucking do something about it.

I’m sure this will result in swift, appropriate actions to hold them accountable. Just let me start holding my breath

Of course, but they didn't lower the prices after. Fucking awful evil companies.

I think the FTC is the only one surprised about this. I bet they're getting their most severe finger wagging ready to go.

We need experts to explain and study what ordinary people fucking experience first hand

Anyone got a link to the actual report?

Shouldn't we blame this on the food monopolies rather than grocery stores?

Is anyone going to do anything about it? No

We all knew they did.

What stunning observational powers they have over there at the FTC. Too bad they don't have any teeth because the government doesn't fund them even close to adequately.

No way!

Prices were always going to rise, COVID just gave them an excuse to accelerate it in a shorter amount of time. In Capitalism every company with stockholders has to show ever-increasing profits, because it's never enough. Even if you knock it out of the park one year, you're expected to knock it out of the park even further the next year. And so they keep charging as much as they think they can get away with, and it's really not sustainable. We're approaching the limits of it now as everyone is taking so much that the average citizen doesn't have much more to give.

Pikachu, I choose you ... to get here and make that face.

Has been in the news for months. Welcome to last week USAtoday.

Duh!