Grocery prices have soared by nearly 30% over the past five years, and a nationwide investigation suggests shoppers—who are buying items on sale may be paying even more than they realize — because of expired sale tags.
A KIRO 7 investigation on grocery price accuracy on the local level found what Consumer Reports revealed at a national level. Some prices displayed on store shelves don’t match what customers are actually charged at checkout. The problem, first uncovered locally by KIRO 7 last year, included a Seattle-area grocery store manager, who told KIRO-7 that pricing errors at her store occurred because staffing shortages have made it difficult to keep thousands of constantly changing shelf tags up to date.
Consumer Reports expanded a similar pricing investigation nationwide.
Over three months, Consumer Reports sent secret shoppers to 26 Kroger-owned grocery stores across 14 states, including a Fred Meyer in Bothell. Their findings, during multiple visits, revealed expired or inaccurate sale tags on more than 150 items, ranging from dog food to coffee, cashews, and cough medicine.
“The staffing issues came up repeatedly as the chief culprit for pricing errors,” said Derek Kravitz, deputy editor at Consumer Reports, who led the investigation.
Among the volunteer shoppers was Betti Johnson, a longtime Fred Meyer customer who said she was surprised by how many errors she found.
“I walked the aisles and looked for expired sales tags and documented what I found,” Johnson said. “If I found a section that had been missed, pretty much every sales tag was expired.”
Johnson said expired tags often led to overcharges at checkout. According to Consumer Reports, during one shopping trip, she was overcharged for 11 items. Across all the stores CR surveyed, the average overcharge was 18.4%, or about $1.70 per item.
Under Washington state law, customers are entitled to the price marked on the sales tag, even if it has expired. “They’re so short-staffed that the people who go in to do the pricing changes can’t complete their job,” Johnson said.
Following the Consumer Reports investigation, Johnson said on several return visits to different Fred Meyer stores, she noticed improvements. “It was perfect last week,” she said. “And over the weekend, I went to the Mill Creek–Silver Lake one. It was perfect.”
On KIRO 7 News tonight at 5:30 p.m., you’ll see how our investigative team noticed similar changes, and we’ll introduce you to our state’s legal consumer watchdog--who’s here to help you make sure the price you see on the sales tag-- is always the price you’ll pay at checkout. How is his team guarding your grocery list—and what a secret shopper wants you to look at more closely—the next time you see a grocery sales tag, Monday at 5:30 p.m.
©2025 Cox Media Group
