Publix Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Grocer Inflates Food Weights for On-Sale Items

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges Publix Super Markets fraudulently inflates the weights of certain foods when an item is advertised at a reduced price, depriving consumers of the savings they were promised. 

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The 47-page Publix class action lawsuit alleges the grocer falsely claims that foods sold by weight, such as meats, cheeses and deli products, weigh “materially more” than they actually do. In particular, for an item advertised with a price reduction, Publix’s point-of-sale (POS) system will automatically increase the product’s weight at checkout so that the customer ends up paying the original, non-sale price, the lawsuit claims. 

“Publix is wrongfully diverting customers’ hard-earned money to itself by implementing a POS that is purposefully programmed to change the weights of products resulting in inflated sales revenues for the company,” the Publix lawsuit alleges. 

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According to the complaint, most Publix customers are unaware that the weight of a product has changed at checkout given that the total price listed on the item matches the price on the customer’s receipt and the POS screen. Moreover, the customer’s receipt does not list the weight of the product, only the purported savings and total price of the item, the case adds. 

“If the customer is not able to see the checkout screen, which is the case with non-self-checkout lanes, the customer will never know that the weight was changed,” the class action suit says. 

The Publix class action shares that, for example, the grocery store advertised the week of January 18, 2025 that extra lean pork tenderloin was on sale for $4.99 per pound, with an apparent savings of $2.00 per pound from its regular price of $6.99 per pound. Though the plaintiff bought a tenderloin that weighed 2.83 pounds, as stated on the product label, the weight of the cut increased to 3.96 pounds at checkout, the lawsuit claims. Per the suit, the plaintiff was charged $19.78, matching the total price listed on the label at the pork’s regular unit price of $6.99 per pound. 

“In this example, Publix should have charged Plaintiff 2.83 pounds multiplied by $4.99, for a total price of $14.12,” the case states. “Instead, Publix charged Plaintiff $19.78, or $5.66 more, which amounts to a 40% overcharge.” 

The case notes that Publix is the largest employee-owned company in the United States, with nearly 1,400 locations nationwide. The complaint charges that employees are thus “incentivized not to change the fraudulent POS system or otherwise alert consumers” about the alleged scheme. In fact, the lawsuit states, employees and managers not only keep the alleged weight inflation scheme under wraps but, in the event a consumer notices a discrepancy, “insist purposely that the customer is wrong, and that the savings were already applied.” 

The suit also accuses Publix of regularly keeping up signs with the previous week’s advertisement specials and sales even though those sales are expired, and of regularly providing incorrect pricing-per-unit data for baby formula. 

The Publix class action lawsuit looks to represent all consumers who bought products sold through the “various deceptive pricing schemes” mentioned in the lawsuit at a Publix store in the United States within the applicable statute of limitations period. 

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