Sarah Taber, who seeks to oust five-term Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler in the November election, says systemic overcharging by North Carolina retailers is an “important piece of the puzzle” behind high grocery prices.
The Democratic Party candidate contended in a recent podcast with U.S. Rep Wiley Nickel that “it’s fairly common to go into a store and get a pound of bananas, and you will be charged a pound and a quarter.” She noted it isn’t “every chain, not every store,” but added that “a lot of grocery stores across the state have been systematically overcharging people.”
Asked about her comments, Taber told Business North Carolina in an emailed statement that “of course grocery costs are high for many different reasons, but I think that this is an important piece of the puzzle.” She added that “we’ve seen that corporations don’t play fair unless there’s someone watching them. Sometimes scales fall out of calibration due to normal use, but inaccurate scales still result in overcharging the customer.”
Andy Ellen, CEO of the N.C. Retail Merchants Association, called Taber’s comments “very disturbing. It’s disappointing that she thinks these companies would intentionally treat their customers this way.”
Higher food prices reflect inflation’s impact on energy, wages and other input costs, Ellen says. “The grocery industry runs on a 1% to 3% profit margin, which is one of the lowest that is out there.” He noted that bananas are often used as a “loss-leader” for groceries, priced at a low price to attract customers to their stores.
Taber said on the podcast that the state ag department should be more aggressive in regulating scanners and scales. “North Carolinians don’t know that their government should protect them when they’re at the checkout machine,” she said.
Troxler said his department has about 20 inspectors who check price scanners and weighting devices at retail locations, including grocery stores. “We make sure that these devices are working properly before we let go of a case,” he said in statement.
“Some states do not have anybody inspecting these devices, but we are fortunate in North Carolina to have a team focused on these inspections,” he added. “We don’t find fraud, we find a lack of staffing in stores and stores not paying attention to pricing changes.”
Inspectors are seeing a 5.6% failure rate this year, down from 10.7% last year, Troxler said.
The department periodically shares news of fines related to price-scanning errors. In July, nines stores were fined for the errors, including six Family Dollar sites and Dollar General, Target and Walgreen locations.
Taber is an ag industry consultant who has also advised hundreds of farms on things like completing food safety audits, performing field work, clearing trees and cleaning stables. Those clients include Amish Aquaponics of New Haven, Indiana and South San Francisco, California-based Plenty Bowery, she says.
Troxler is a Guilford County farmer who has won five statewide elections, serving in the post since 2005.
