Kroger is minding pennies – its own and customers.’
This year, in the wake of President Donald Trump ordering the U.S. Mint to stop making pennies, the Cincinnati-based supermarket giant has begun asking shoppers who prefer to pay cash to do so with exact change. The retailer has posted signs requesting exact coinage.
Though legally able to do so, Kroger so far is not refusing pennies or cash payments.
“Kroger will continue to accept pennies for payment,” the retailer said in a statement. “We continue to assess the impact of the U.S. Treasury’s decision to end penny production. If using cash for payment, we kindly ask customers to consider providing exact change.”
Kroger officials say it is displaying signs throughout its 103 stores in its Cincinnati/Dayton Division (which includes Northern Kentucky) to “please consider providing exact change if they are using cash for payment.”
In February, Trump told the Treasury Department to halt penny production. Since then, Congress is considering a bill to formalize the end of the penny and require transactions to be rounded to the nearest nickel.
While there are more than 100 billion pennies in circulation, the move has created a shortage, forcing retailers to act.
Industry groups like the Food Industry Association and National Grocers Association sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Oct. 14. The shortage, they wrote, is beginning to cause “a cascade of negative events in stores across the country,” specifically for retailers in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps program also called SNAP), who have to comply with the low-income families program’s equal treatment provisions.
Due to the penny shortage, some retailers have to round to the nearest nickel for cash-paying customers, resulting in a different price than that for customers paying electronically, according to the letter. This poses SNAP-compliance concerns, since retailers that accept food assistance benefits are required to treat all customers the same, whether or not they’re involved in SNAP.
While U.S. currency is “legal tender” good for “all debts, public or private,” that means only a creditor (someone who is owed money) is mandated to accept cash as payment.
“There is no federal statute mandating that a private business … must accept currency or coins as payment,” according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. “Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash,” though states are allowed to pass laws to mandate accepting cash for retail transactions.
Just over a dozen states require retailers to accept cash payment from customers.