Groundwork Collaborative, More Perfect Union and Consumer Reports released a 400-shopper secret-shopper experiment on September 29, 2026, finding different prices for about 75 percent of items in the same grocery basket at a Seattle Safeway. Instacart promised to shut the pricing experiment down, which traces to its 2021 acquisition of AI pricing firm Eversight. Reporting since has put the price gaps as high as 23 percent, or up to $1,200 more a year for some families. Lindsay Owens, whose book Gouged was published the same day, says the company reversed course within two weeks.