Ten Ways Kroger Disrespects Their Customers
Surveillance, Junk Food and High Prices Await You at Understaffed Stores
Been shopping at the same Kroger-owned QFC supermarket in Seattle for decades but the limits of my patience have been tested as of late because Kroger no longer even pretends to give a shit about their customers or their workers. Here are ten examples.
(1) The Filth
You won’t see this at the QFC in Seattle’s upscale University Village shopping center but at the Rainier Valley store the sidewalk in front of the building has not been pressure washed in months. Homeless people often hang around in this area - all the more reason to keep it tidy so that the first impression of shoppers is not the sight of human feces and overflowing trash bins. Kroger can spend money to have an omnipresent surveillance tower in the parking lot but I guess paying someone a couple hundred dollars to occasionally wash down the entrance is not a budget priority.
(2) They See You
A panopticon of surveillance starts in the parking lot where the solar-powered audio-equipped camera tower looms over you. A computerized voice welcomes shoppers and orders them to lock their cars. Once in the store dozens of cameras create an eye in the sky experience. “Recording in progress” is the message that appears on the many in-store monitors.
Mayoral candidate Brad Lander wants to link store security cameras to NYPD to cut down on retail theft
A Democratic mayoral contender wants to force city stores to “unlock the toothpaste” by linking their camera systems to cops to speed up shoplifting reports.
New York Post - February 13, 2025
(3) A Humiliating Self-Checkout System
Kroger stores are chronically understaffed which means that you can wait in long lines for the one or maybe two clerks working the registers or just give up and go to the self checkout stands - otherwise known as the “union busting machines.” Surveillance continues here as cameras equipped with AI tech scold you if you check out an item the wrong way, and play back a video of your scan for the clerk who must come over and restart the checkout process. At least there’s some human to human contact at that point.
Every time you pay the machine asks you if you would like to donate to some charity or another. That’s rich - asking a normal person who is not Bill Gates to donate money every time they shop. Bill Gates has probably never been in a grocery store.
That charity pitch is just one more regressive tax - one that is, luckily, optional. Seattle’s nanny state soda tax is another insult for the customer. Paying extra for a sugary beverage hurts the little guy, but someone with money will never notice.
(4) Rent A Cops
The surveillance continues in the form of poorly paid private security guards who lurk at the front of the store and often follow around customers they tag as suspicious. They are legally powerless to lay a hand on anybody who is shoplifting and often watch helplessly as boosters run out of the store with stolen goods. The real cops do not care about shoplifters which might be the only good thing that cops do, or don’t do.
Some of these cosplaying phony porkers carry weapons or even guns. They look ridiculous.
(5) Locked Up!
The liquor is in locked cases in the front of the store. It might make sense to have this expensive and desirable merch locked up, but do you think any shoppers really want to have to ask someone to unlock the laundry detergent too? Retailers are now testing an app that allows customers to unlock those cabinets using their phones.
The shoplifting crisis that has been promoted by corporate America and hyped by the legacy media is fake. The small amount of shrinkage that occurs at grocery stores is built in to the business plan. Shoplifting is a great distracting right wing trope. The real thieves are the robber barons who control the food supply.
The Shoplifting ‘Epidemic’ is a Lie
The media might want us to think society is wracked by a shoplifting ‘epidemic’ or ‘crisis,’ but when we take a look at the facts, it’s obvious that isn’t true.
Current Affairs - January 1, 2024
(6) The App that is Forced Upon You
I resisted the idea of a “club card” for years, then after that used an anonymous burner card until I realized once you use a bank card to make a purchase they know who you are again. On the bright side - every couple of months Kroger sends me coupons for products I have recently purchased in the store - which always include a coupon for one free “pint” (14 ounces is their version of a pint) of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Shrinkflation is rampant at Kroger stores. Marketers pretending the customer is so dumb that they don’t notice they are paying the same price for less food. Brilliant!
I have yet to install the app for “digital deals.” In order to get the best prices, you have to own a cell phone, keep the Kroger app on your cell phone, and submit to yet another level of tracking and surveillance. Your data will probably be re-sold to other entities, or stolen.
(7) Aisle After Aisle of Junk Food
Most everything in American supermarkets is full of overprocessed corn and sugar. And corn sugar. Who really wants Ranch Flavored Doritos? Or Jell-O? Or fucking Flamin’ Hot Cheetos? It’s all poison.
People need fresh bananas and cucumbers and dairy products and laundry detergent. Good luck wading through the aisles of junk food to get to the things you want that are healthy and useful without succumbing to the temptation to buy crap. The crap is highly profitable and that’s why it hogs so much real estate on the shelves.
(8) The Prices
Supermarket corporations are quick to claim that they are a low margin business, which is a logical fallacy. Car dealers run a high margin business, but a person might buy a car every few years and that person will need to buy a carton of milk every week. A high volume low margin situation still makes for a highly profitable business, especially for Kroger which has over 2700 stores.
The pandemic price gouging was years ago, but food prices have barely come down. One notable recent example is the price of eggs, which have not only not come down but skyrocketed. Although avian flu might be partially to blame, the large corporations that produce the majority of our eggs at factory farms have conspired to jack up the prices. It’s a win for Kroger - they make more money if you spend more money.
If You Care About Record Egg Prices, You Should Care About Corporate Consolidation
Food & Power - February 18, 2025
(9) Smart Shelves
Back to the surveillance. A 2018 press release from Microsoft proclaimed, falsely, that “Kroger’s smart shelves ditch the paper, drop the lights and delight the shoppers.” It’s painful to write this, but for years Kroger has been partnering with big tech to create a system of “smart pricing” which uses facial recognition technology and other silicon valley fuckery to automatically change the price of goods on digital price tags. This is ripe for abuse. Theoretically, this could be used to, say, charge someone a price based on their race, or based on information about that individual stored in a law enforcement database.
Automation in Retail Is Even Worse Than You Thought
New technology is not just making shopping more challenging for workers and consumers—it’s poised to rip off the most vulnerable.
The Nation - January 25, 2025
(10) Treatment of Workers
Some of the workers at the Kroger location I shop at have been there for years or even decades. That doesn’t mean it’s a great job, but it is a union job. UFCW 3000 represents workers there and they do their best given the circumstances. And those circumstances are that unions have been crushed over the past few decades by neoliberal pro-austerity anti-union capitalism, leaving them with little power or leverage over the giant corporations they are fighting. Imagine a world where these hard working people were rewarded stock options instead of just a wage, and that they were paid a living wage. Enough to pay their bills and rent without going in to debt.
Judge blocks Albertsons-Kroger $25 billion supermarket merger
A Washington state judge ruled the deal would harm both customers and workers.
NBC News - December 10, 2024
A Better World Awaits Us
I don’t often use rape metaphors but Kroger has us over a barrel. People need eggs and milk and vegetables for dinners they can no longer afford, thanks to Kroger. In Seattle we are lucky to have choices. In some communities Kroger is all they have. In others, Dollar Tree is the only option. Incredible.
Food deserts exist. In the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Where the CEO of Kroger makes well over a million dollars a month.
Think of the panic in the corporate suites of Kroger (and Walmart, Safeway, Amazon etc.) if we organized a mass boycott of these stores to demand healthier food, fair prices, decent wages and company ownership for the workers.
Imagine if we had a political party that represented workers and not just the billionaires.
Electoral politics have failed us, but we still have the Internet and we still have the power of numbers. Revolutions happen when people realize they have nothing left to lose. At this point that is almost everybody.
—Alex
Nirvana WOK Online: nirvanawok.com • Gmail • Instagram • Twitter • TikTok • Facebook • YouTube • Venmo • Donorbox
Been to a Safeway / Albertson's lately? No better than Kroger/QFC/Freddy, alas.