In the case of Safeway/Albertsons, they jacked food prices up to make their finances look better for a merger.
Flip side of this would be a subscription company dropping prices (or offering lots of promos) to gain lots of subs before a merger.
You are neglecting that people may not have a choice.
For people w/o cars, they are limited to whatever grocery stores are within walking distance, or accessible by mass transit.
In my case, my easiest choices are the extremely overpriced organic store, Safeway, or QFC. Once Safeway and QFC merge, I'll be down to basically two local choices, and I live in a major metro.
I know people who have one grocery store around them. There are parts of the country[1] where in a ~15+ mile radius you have a single choice for shopping.
Now throw in people who don't have the time, or ability, to commute, and many grocery stores can charge whatever the heck they want up to the limit of what consumers can afford.
https://mobile.twitter.com/moetkacik/status/1580938712740831...
From that thread, yes indeed, the price increase is 76% for 2019 to 2022, but that is (obviously) a completely absurd level of price increases for a 3 year timespan.
And this isn't some unique situation, this is pricing at one of America's largest grocery retailers, a grocery store chain that is the sole grocery store in many communities, and a grocery store chain that is set to soon become much larger.
[1] This isn't unusual, in Washington State if you go outside any major city, you find that smaller cities/towns basically have one Safeway for the surrounding area and that is it. Visiting friends on the east coast, I noticed a similar situation, a cluster of small towns and a single grocery store (Kroger owned).
1) Near zero interest rates during the pandemic - technically set by the Fed, but under obvious political pressure to do it from both the former and current administrations.
2) Helicopter money from the government. I’m not just talking about the one time checks that people use as a strawman to attack as an inflation cause. There were student loan pauses, 300/mo per child credit(they tried to make it permanant!), and more. The fact that much of the money actually went to younger or poorer folks, which we celebrate, probably also drove inflation much more than money going to rich people, because the poor and the young are the most likely to immediately spend it. Lots of pandemic loans given to businesses too with little to no oversight too.
3) Supply side constraints due to shutdowns at suppliers overseas.
4) Demand side rebound demand for things people avoided or weren’t allowed during the pandemic.
Much of this is likely attributable to government policy, so I blame our political class.