The exterior of the now defunct Seabra market in Bristol, Rhode Island, in seen in a 2008 photo. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
Groceries aren’t getting any cheaper, but Rhode Island Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos has some ideas on how to make supermarket shelves a little more equitable.
“No one has a silver bullet to address grocery prices,” Matos told the House Committee on Corporations Thursday, March 13, when she testified on three bills that are part of her Fair Price Grocery Agenda.
But Matos does have one belief about where the price increases are coming from: retailer markup. Big supermarket chains have continued the trend of pandemic-era markup, she wrote in testimony submitted to the committee.
“While giant national chains have thrived, our families and our independent grocery stores are just scraping by,” Matos testified.
The four bills in Matos’ grocery cart heard by the committee are all sponsored by Democrats:
- H5551, sponsored by Rep. Megan Cotter of Exeter, would protect Rhode Islanders from surge pricing at grocery stores by requiring that food and essential household goods maintain a physical price tag. The bill is designed to preemptively prevent stores charging consumers prices based on real-time demand.
- H5552, sponsored by Rep. Grace Diaz of Providence, is modeled after a federal antitrust law called the Robinson-Patman Act, and would allow independent grocery stores to ask and receive from suppliers the pricing agreements made with larger retailers. It would also make it illegal for large suppliers to charge independent stores more than big grocery chains for the same goods.
- H5553, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Noret of Coventry, is designed with seniors in mind — specifically, those who don’t have smartphones. The bill would require stores to offer in-store alternatives to digital-only discounts, but it does not dictate paper coupons specifically. Noret noted that asking for coupons in a crammed checkout line, “rather shames the individual to stand there and ask for a discount for 50 cents on this, 50 cents on that.” Noret imagined one solution: Stores could hold cards loaded with coupons at service desks for customers without smartphones, that could be temporarily used in store without having to ask for piecemeal access.
- H5902, sponsored by Rep. Edith Ajello of Providence, would prevent grocery stores from using restrictive covenants, which prohibit new grocery stores from opening in former grocery store locations. It was not heard Thursday. Introduced on Feb. 28, the bill is waiting to be scheduled for a hearing before the House Committee on Judiciary.
David Folcarelli, Matos’ senior advisor who helped draft the bills, said Friday he believes Rhode Island could be the first state in the nation to regulate grocery story practices in this way.
Matos wrote Friday via email that she was “very happy” with Thursday’s hearing, “which was a great introduction to the Fair Price Grocery Agenda,” she said. “While we got the expected pushback from lobbying groups that represent national supermarket chains, we also received excellent written support from local and national groups who are fighting to protect independent businesses.”
The lieutenant governor is no stranger to supporting groceries stores or employees who stock the shelves. “The workers who do the actual labor of feeding our communities deserve their fair share of the enormous profits reaped by international chains,” Matos wrote in a February statement on striking Stop and Shop workers.
Committee member and Democratic Rep. Enrique Sanchez said he was supportive of the bill. “A lot of markets, a lot of corporations and companies like to mention that they can’t do much to bring down the cost of food, milk, eggs and so on,” he said. “But at the local level, I know bills like these create paths of less cost expenses for residents, especially in low-income communities.”
Matos’ bill also received positive written testimonies from local organizations like the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns.
Folcarelli said Friday the lieutenant governor’s office was cautiously optimistic: “We never take anything for granted, but these are issues that touch the lives of everyday Rhode Islanders and we believe they resonate with lawmakers. Bills like fair digital coupons and ending restrictive covenants are common-sense solutions to clearly unfair practices by superstores, and we’ll keep making the case for passing them as soon as possible.”
‘A friendly disagreement’
But the grocery store industry was cool to Matos’ efforts. An example is Noret’s coupon bill, which is a redux of H7089 from the 2024 legislative session. That bill would have required retailers to issue paper coupons alongside digital versions and it was blasted by the Rhode Island Food Dealers Association. Scott Bromberg, the trade group’s executive director, noted in a testimony last year that digital coupons reduce waste, attract customers and are more efficient and more widely used now than paper coupons.
“Many of our retailers offer coupons to customers at the service desks, at the register and by using in-store kiosks where coupons can be printed,” Bromberg noted, and also pointed out that digital coupons are usually tied to a customer’s loyalty card. “Based on personal usage, loyalty cards offer more savings, especially during seasonal times of the year. Retailers have been developing these programs for years, and they are critically important to our industry.”
This year’s coupon bill is indicative of the lieutenant governor’s willingness to maintain “an open line of communication” with the supermarket industry, Folcarelli said Friday.
“On digital coupons, for example, we took care to consider their letter of opposition from last year, which focused on the burden of paper coupons, and wrote legislation that provided them with leeway to innovate beyond paper so long as everyone could access their coupons,” he added.
But Bromberg, in his testimony Thursday, was still skeptical of the revised bill. “It’s really unclear what the scope or definition of an advertised price is,” he said. “There are many ways that retailers advertise products to incentivize customers to come shop in store.”
Both Bromberg and Folcarelli pointed to Pew Research Center findings about smartphone usage among older people. Bromberg wondered if older people not using digital coupons was “a question of availability, or…a question of fluency using technology.”
“He pointed out that 79% of seniors have a smartphone and I pointed out that 21% do not,” Folcarelli said Friday. “We just have a friendly disagreement on what obligation major corporations should have to serve the one in five seniors who are left out of their discounts.”
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