I’m a retired grocer.
It wasn’t my choice to retire. I was driven out of business by a big chain that made it impossible to compete.
I was thinking about my own story when Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris recently announced a plan to go after price gougers in the grocery business.
I oppose that proposal.
I don’t think it’s necessary or needed. I began my career in the grocery business in 1975, after President Richard Nixon instituted price controls and it was a disaster for independent grocers.
End of independent grocers like me started with big-box dollar stores
As someone who ran a grocery store, high grocery prices are the symptom – and not the disease. If anyone really wants to cure the problem, they have to go after what’s causing it.
I live in a little Kansas town called Haven, population 1,200 , and I bought a neighborhood grocery store in 2012 because I figured I could retire and hand it off to my son.
My grocery store was doing fine for the first three years, but then a dollar store came to town.