New Jersey lawmakers are advancing a bill that would restrict how grocery retailers use digital shelf labels and algorithmic pricing, rules that the industry warns could eliminate the quick markdowns shoppers rely on to buy discounted meat, dairy, and produce before it goes to waste.
The proposal, called the "Fair Price Protection Act," cleared the New Jersey Senate Commerce Committee on March 16 and now heads to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. If it becomes law, it would ban retailers from using pricing strategies that change the cost of groceries based on personal data. It would also restrict electronic shelf labels when they are tied to personalized algorithmic pricing or other tactics that draw on customer information.
The bill's supporters frame it as a check on "surveillance pricing." But the National Retail Federation and major chains say the measure is so broadly written that it could hamstring the very tools stores use to drop prices fast, the same tools that let a manager mark a package of chicken down by 30 percent at 6 p.m. instead of throwing it out at closing.
The legislation targets both brick-and-mortar grocers and third-party delivery platforms. Under its terms, those companies would be barred from using surveillance data to charge different customers different prices for the same items. A news release describing the bill stated that retailers "would be required to use a method that allows for a non-digital presentation of prices for groceries and other foodstuffs."
That language matters. It does not simply ban personalized surge pricing. It reaches into the mechanics of how prices are displayed, potentially requiring paper tags alongside or instead of the electronic labels that Walmart, Kroger, and other chains have been installing across their store networks.
Walmart plans to have digital labels in all of its stores by the end of 2026. Greg Cathey, the company's senior vice president of transformation and innovation, has pushed back on the idea that the technology is designed for surge pricing:
"It is absolutely not going to be one hour it is this price and the next hour it is not."
Walmart also stated that its prices "are the same for all customers in any given store and are consistent regardless of demand, time of day, or who is shopping." In other words, the company says the labels are about efficiency and accuracy, not about charging one shopper more than another.
The National Retail Federation warned that the proposal could make it harder for grocery stores to efficiently mark down products before they can no longer be sold. That is not an abstract concern. Perishable food has a narrow window. A digital label lets a store cut a price in seconds across dozens of items approaching their sell-by date. A paper tag requires a worker with a label gun, one package at a time.
Retailers already use technology-driven discounting to salvage billions of dollars' worth of groceries that would otherwise end up in dumpsters. The NRF argued that the New Jersey rules could also stop retailers from lowering prices to match seasonal trends or respond to consumer demand, the kind of routine adjustments that benefit shoppers, not exploit them.
The trade group did not mince words about the broader legislative approach. It called the bill part of:
"a patchwork of broad, vaguely worded disclosures"
And it warned directly about the cost consequences:
"Creating new compliance burdens will ultimately add to the cost of goods and introduce confusion for the consumer and the shopping experience."
The NRF pointed out that retailers are already covered by laws on antitrust, truthful advertising, price accuracy, price gouging, civil rights, and data privacy. More than 40 states and territories have price gouging laws that apply during emergencies or unusual demand spikes. The question New Jersey legislators have not clearly answered is what gap this new bill fills that existing statutes do not.
That gap matters because the bill's language is broad enough to sweep in tools that have nothing to do with personalized pricing. Electronic shelf labels, at their most basic, replace the paper tags that employees have to swap by hand every time a price changes. They reduce errors. They speed up markdowns. They free up labor. None of that requires collecting personal data on individual shoppers.
Yet the bill's restrictions on electronic labels could apply even when those labels are not connected to any algorithmic personalization, simply because the technology exists on the same hardware. Legislators appear to be regulating the tool rather than the misuse.
New Jersey is not alone in layering new mandates on the grocery aisle. Massachusetts recently moved to ban plastic bags statewide and charge shoppers a dime for each replacement, another rule aimed at a real concern that lands squarely on consumers at checkout.
The pattern is familiar. A legislature identifies a genuine worry, in this case, that companies could use personal data to manipulate grocery prices. It drafts a bill broad enough to address the worry. And the breadth catches tools and practices that actually help the people the bill is supposed to protect.
Shoppers who hunt for marked-down meat, day-old bread, or clearance dairy know what those reduced-price stickers mean. They mean a store is trying to sell something before it expires rather than throw it away. The technology behind digital labels makes that process faster and more responsive. Restricting it does not protect consumers from surveillance pricing. It protects food from being sold.
Meanwhile, grocery prices remain a top concern for American families. Shrinkflation alone is quietly adding to the average family's annual grocery bill, and shoppers are already stretched thin. Adding compliance costs to the supply chain, costs the NRF says will be passed along, does not ease that pressure.
The bill now sits before the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. Key questions remain unanswered. The bill number has not been widely publicized. The sponsors have not been prominently identified in available reporting. And the statutory definition of "surveillance pricing", the central concept driving the entire proposal, is unclear.
Walmart and Kroger, the two largest grocery chains in the country, both face scrutiny under the measure. Walmart has already been forced to rethink in-store technology in other contexts, pulling self-checkout machines after theft problems forced a reassessment. But digital shelf labels are a different category of tool, one aimed at pricing accuracy, not labor replacement.
Whether the bill advances further depends on whether New Jersey legislators are willing to distinguish between genuine data exploitation and the everyday pricing flexibility that keeps food affordable and out of landfills.
If lawmakers cannot tell the difference between a store spying on your shopping habits and a store trying to sell you chicken before it spoils, the people who pay the price will be the shoppers they claim to be helping.