According to research, the average consumer spends at least 30% more on their monthly food budget than this time a year ago. However, when it comes to the grocery chains providing the goods, things are about to get interesting.
Kroger, a long-time family-owned chain is seeking to join forces with another behemoth who got their origins in the midwest nearly 100 years ago. The bootstrapped brand, Albertsons, which got its start when a former manager took his last bit of savings backed by a family loan and partnered with another entrepreneur, first opened it's doors in the Gem State.
After much success over the past ten decades, the grocery behemoths devised a strategy to combine forces and merge late last year. Totalling more than $24 billion dollars, the deal would effectively make them the largest grocery retailer in the country, trailed only by Wal-Mart and Publix for the top three.
However, in mid Februrary, the Federal Trade Commission filed lawsuit in order to stop the blockbuster deal due to the possibility of tanking jobs for more than 10,000 employees as well as the possibility of unchecked price gouging as the merger would be unprecedented in supermarket history.
"This supermarket merger comes as Americans have seen the price of groceries rise steadily over the past few years". - Henry,Liu, Director, Bureau of Competition, FTC
While other companies have completed mergers in recent decades,with the majority occuring in the financial, consumer goods, and technological spaces, the current amalgamation exists in an area that patrons are most concerned about.
As the economy continues to deal with the fall out of interests rates slowly leveling off from 40-year highs according to the Consumer Price Index, consumers are still searching for ways to maximize their budgets. The lawsuit, the latest in a string to actions to halt the perceived monopolization of the economy, has yet to come to yield a final decision.