Mass. lawmakers demand answers after study finds price gouging between Stop & Shop locations

BOSTON — State lawmakers are asking questions of Stop & Shop after a teen task force found pricing discrepancies between city and suburban stores.

The Quincy-based grocery chain charges “egregiously higher prices” at an urban store location in Boston, according to youth volunteers at the Hyde Park Task Force.

A letter from lawmakers alleges that the Jamaica Plain Stop & Shop on Centre Street was charging 18% more for groceries compared to a store location in Dedham.

The numbers come from a study done in June 2023 when the youth volunteers bought nearly identical items from each store.

If a household spends $300 on groceries weekly, they would pay about $2,808 more per year at the Jamcaia Plian location than if they shopped in Dedham, the study showed.

Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey stated in their letter that Stop & Shop responded to that task force report and insisted the overall price difference between the locations is “less than 21 percent the original study reported.”

However, the senators and two other members of Congress said Stop & Shop’s actions appear to reflect opportunistic and sometimes predatory pricing practices by major food and grocery corporations in the country.

They have six questions they want Stop & Shop to answer by October 14:

1. What pricing algorithms does Stop & Shop use to price its goods?

a. Please provide a list of all factors that go into pricing decisions, and their ranked weight of importance in the overall decision-making process.

b. Does Stop & Shop take into account neighborhood demographics or U.S. Census tract information as part of its pricing decisions?

c. Does this algorithm result in price differences for stores in urban, rural, and suburban areas?

2. Please provide updated, current prices for each of the 17 products that the Hyde

Square Task Force identified as being more expensive at the Jamaica Plain location than the Dedham location, for each of those locations.

a. In the aggregate, what is the price difference for these products at these locations?

b. What explains this price difference?

3. How much does Stop & Shop pay to lease its store space in Jamaica Plain? How much does Stop & Shop pay to lease its store space in Dedham?

4. Does Stop & Shop change its prices based on price increases at nearby grocery stores—for example, at Whole Foods located 0.7 miles from Stop & Shop’s Jamaica Plain location?

5. There are 124 Stop & Shop Locations in Massachusetts. Please provide, for the 17 items that were included in the Hyde Square Task Force’s study, the highest and lowest price that they have been sold at in Massachusetts Stop & Shop locations in the past year and what the respective store locations for each of these are.

6. What actions, if any, has Stop & Shop taken to lower prices and make prices more uniform across its 124 Massachusetts locations following the release of the Task Force report in June 2023?

In a statement, Stop & Shop told Boston 25, “Under no circumstances does Stop & Shop consider a store neighborhood’s socioeconomic makeup when setting prices. Stop & Shop, like many other retailers, has prices that may vary by store location to account for factors like whether a property is owned or leased, rent, labor costs, store size, and store offerings, among other things.”

Stop & Shop added, “For example, our Hyde Park and Roslindale stores in Boston are priced very similar to Dedham, in part due to having tenants at these locations that offset operating costs.”

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