US grocers urge regulators to act on buyer power in food retail

The National Grocers Association (NGA), representing much than 21,000 autarkic market retailers and wholesalers, has formally called connected the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to measurement up enforcement of existing antitrust laws to code what it describes arsenic harmful purchaser powerfulness abuses successful the market retail sector.

The organisation’s purchaser powerfulness missive to regulators warns that ascendant marketplace players whitethorn beryllium utilizing their purchasing leverage successful ways that harm competition, rise costs for rivals and lend to higher nutrient prices for consumers and autarkic grocers.

In a missive dated 20 January 2026, the NGA urged the FTC and DOJ to use established antitrust provisions, including the Robinson-Patman Act and Section 5 of the FTC Act, to curb discriminatory pricing practices and preferential attraction by ample market buyers.

The relation argued that lax enforcement of these laws implicit caller decades has enabled ascendant retailers to unafraid preferential pricing, fees, promotional allowances and proviso presumption that are not accessible to smaller competitors, distorting mean pricing dynamics.

The Robinson-Patman Act, a 1936 US instrumentality designed to prohibit terms favoritism that lessens competition, specifically seeks to support smaller retailers from disadvantaged purchasing presumption comparative to larger rivals.

According to the NGA, specified purchaser powerfulness practices person a nonstop interaction connected autarkic grocers’ competitiveness, narrowing the tract for smaller concatenation and family-owned stores. The radical besides cites caller tribunal filings successful an FTC lawsuit – though dismissed connected procedural grounds – that elaborate allegations of pricing arrangements utilized to prolong competitory advantages for ample buyers portion disadvantaging different retailers.

The missive asserts that unchecked purchaser powerfulness is not solely a substance of retailer rivalry but is besides contributing to higher user prices and diminished nutrient access, peculiarly successful smaller and agrarian communities.

The NGA highlighted probe showing that markets with higher retail attraction thin to acquisition faster terms maturation and stronger ostentation pass-through, suggesting that reduced contention tin elevate semipermanent market costs.

In summation to competitory implications for retailers, the relation emphasised that excessive purchaser powerfulness tin adversely impact producers and farmers by suppressing upstream prices portion expanding costs downstream, exerting unit crossed the broader nutrient proviso chain.