Elizabeth Warren Blames High Food Prices on Grocery Chains’ ‘Record’ 1 Percent Profit Margins

The Massachusetts senator advocated breaking up major grocery retailers with antitrust laws.

On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) tweeted a video clip from her appearance on MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle Reports a couple of days earlier.

“What happens,” the caption asked, “when only a handful of giant grocery store chains like Kroger dominate an industry? They can force high food prices onto Americans while raking in record profits.” Warren claimed that “a handful of giant chains” had replaced the wide selection of smaller stores that used to dot the American landscape, and she called for the use of the government’s antitrust power to “break up these giant corporations.”

But Warren could hardly have picked a worse industry to use as an example: Grocery stores consistently have among the lowest profit margins of any economic sector. According to data compiled this month by New York University finance professor Aswath Damodaran, the entire retail grocery industry currently averages barely more than 1 percent in net profit. In its most recent quarter, Kroger reported a profit margin of 0.75 percent, during a time in which Warren claims that the chain was “expanding profits” due to its “market dominance.”

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