A little more than three months into his new job, Kroger CEO Greg Foran has announced the grocery chain is going to cut prices so it can compete with other low-price grocery giants Aldi, Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Costco and others. 

It’s not exactly clear which products will see a decrease in cost or when the price slashing will begin, but according to an interview Foran had with Bloomberg, the plan to cut costs for consumers will begin as a test before being rolled out to all stores nationwide.

“Kroger plans to import more products directly and hone its use of technology to help fund the cuts,” Grocery Dive writes. 

“I think about our business a bit like a Formula One race. There’s a lead group of cars that are doing a very good job,” Foran said in his interview. “Our objective is to get out of the midfield and start lapping faster, make up the gap on the first-group cars and then ideally pass them.”

Kroger also owns and operates Ruler, a much smaller discount grocery chain that primarily sells Kroger products. There is no indication that the price cuts will make their way to Ruler stores. The company’s stated goal is discounted pricing in Kroger-branded stores.

Foran said customer “baskets” are down, which means shoppers are trying to buy fewer products and get them for the lowest price. He cited a plethora of reasons as to why customers are shopping the way they are, including the Iran war, gas prices and the economy’s uncertainty.

“Not everyone’s basket is the same,” Foran added. “(The price cuts) need to be across thousands of products, and it has to be something that passes the common sense piece with customers.”

In a report from Reuters, via KFGO-radio, Kroger is planning to fund the price cuts by reducing costs, such as “including by importing ‌merchandise directly and using technology more effectively, before reinvesting the savings into lower shelf prices.”

All of this comes less than a year after Kroger announced it was cutting nearly 1,000 jobs company-wide in August 2025. 

“Savings from changes to Kroger’s administrative teams across the U.S. will help the company lower prices for customers, increase access to associates and add new stores,” WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, where Kroger is headquartered, reported at the time. “The job cuts also appear to have been partly driven by a boost in hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic and the addition of workers during what turned out to be Kroger’s failed merger with competing grocery chain Albertson’s.”