Mayor’s “Fair and Transparent Pricing” bill likely to raise grocery store prices

Pitched as giving every shopper the same price, the only documented personalized price variation is online.

CB 121267 would ban “algorithmic-based price discrimination” enabled by “surveillance technology” to collect information about consumers and use it to offer “random variations in prices to different consumers.” The initiative is part of a national UFCW campaign to keep Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) out of grocery stores.

Promising "Equal Discounts for All,” the Mayor's marquee line is pure brick-and-mortar: "the same product, in the same store, should cost the same no matter who's pushing the cart." Yet the only evidence her office cites of individualized pricing occurring is a Consumer Reports/Groundwork Collaborative study of Instacart, a delivery app.

The bill's actual in-store reach is to ban retailers from using ESL to display a price that’s been modified using algorithmic-based price discrimination, defined as manipulating the price of goods based on automated analysis of a consumer’s purchase history, location, and other personal information.

But is that really happening? No, this is a pretend problem. While ESL technology allows for “surge” pricing whereby retailers increase prices in response to factors such as time of day, weather conditions, or demand spikes, it’s also used to offer discounts and there is zero evidence of any retailer using the technology to engage in algorithmic-based price discrimination against individual shoppers in grocery stores.

In fact, an academic study published in 2025 examined a US grocery retailer as it implemented ESL across 100 stores. It found “virtually no surge pricing either before or after ESL adoption.” (“Electronic shelf labels have not led to surge pricing in US grocery retail, despite regulator concerns” by Stamatopoulos, Ioannis and Sanders, Robert Evan and Bray, Robert.)

If passed, CB 121267 would be enforced through a shopper’s right of private action (i.e. suing the store) and violations would be investigated by the City Attorney’s Office which is highly unusual. It would go into effect in September 2027 at a one-time cost $175,000.

Update, Sept. 11: The Human Services, Labor, and Economic Development Committee passed CB 121267 as amended, 4-0, and recommended that the Full Council pass it. Rinck, Foster, Hollingsworth, and Saka voted yes. The Full Council is scheduled to consider Version 2 on Sept. 22.

What goes in doesn't come out the same. Amendment 1, which would have limited private lawsuits to tangible harm, was withdrawn without a vote. Amendment 2 narrowed the electronic shelf label rule and passed 4-0 with one member absent. Amendment 3 added a safe harbor for conduct meeting every condition of a listed exception and passed 3-0, with one abstention and one absence. The committee tally records all three outcomes.

The $175,000 one-time cost and September 2027 start date below come from the original fiscal note. No amended fiscal note has been posted.