Late on September 9, I spent roughly an hour at the newish Wegman’s at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the one surrounded by a big parking lot and empty office space, and came away with a bill that topped $300 for a single week’s worth of food — $319.32 exactly. Never before had I paid so much money for food that my wife and I would have to cook ourselves. Granted, this was for a family of four and covered all of our meals. In fact, we’d cut out going to restaurants, buying lunches, and getting takeout entirely. But half the family was under 3 years old then, and it wasn’t like I was buying truffle oils. There would have been no red meat, very few prepared foods, a lot of beans. I remember thinking that this was a one-off fluke, the result of pricier staples and condiments that I’d had to buy all at once. But then it happened again. On October 5, I spent $340.34. Who could afford this? We needed to change. There is no produce so fresh to justify this amount of money. By the next month, I’d be haggling for street parking a few blocks from Trader Joe’s on Atlantic Avenue. It was a pain but worth it. My first bill: $105.90 — about 70 percent lower than that giant October bill.

On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block a merger agreement that would tie up Albertsons and Kroger, a $24.6 billion deal that would make for one of the largest grocery chains in the country. “There are still too many corporations in America ripping people off: price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation,” President Biden said earlier this month. The suit comes at an auspicious time. Three years ago next month, the first signs of this era of high........

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