It's a wide-spread tactic in the grocery industry.
Likely, prices are high because population is super low, and people can buy real cheap at farmer markets where they just sell direct. European grocery stores buying up property in some rural area? That's called a conspiracy theory - blame problems of low population and no easy highway access, because we refuse to vote for taxes that pay for infrastructure on those scheming socialists an ocean away.
https://www.google.com/search?q=supermarket+chain+buying+pro...
Next time when your personal incredulity finds something unbelievable, instead of assuming you must be right and the other person is wrong, just try a simple google search.
In my area property is constrained and in high demand so deed restrictions that only block one industry don't inhibit sales much.
Our population is not "super low"; our county has a third of the population of the largest city in our region of the US.
> people can buy real cheap at farmer markets where they just sell direct
Just because I said "rural" doesn't mean there's farmland.
So unless you can post a source of your claim - euro grocer pissing away millions by devaluing rural properties, the search link you posted so far quite literally proved you wrong.
Grocery and basic goods prices can vary significantly around the US. I live in a rural area where groceries are expensive as hell, in part because a european-owned supermarket chain has been buying up property that could be used for grocery stores, slapping deed restrictions on it that make it unusable for a grocery store, and then putting it back on the market.
Meanwhile I go on vacation to another rural area and groceries are cheap as hell...