A newly unsealed federal lawsuit reveals something more unsettling than a retailer getting a good deal: it describes a deliberate, multi-year scheme in which PepsiCo allegedly acted as Walmart’s enforcer — quietly pressuring other grocery chains to keep their Pepsi prices high so Walmart could keep its prices low. The advocacy group More Perfect Union just brought those details to over a million viewers on YouTube, and now people are asking the obvious question: if Pepsi did the dirty work, why is Walmart’s name on everyone’s lips?
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- The FTC sued PepsiCo in January 2025, alleging it gave Walmart secretly preferential pricing in violation of the Robinson-Patman Act.
- Pepsi allegedly ran a multi-year campaign against Food Lion — cutting its promotional spending and raising its wholesale costs — to ensure Walmart’s shelf prices stayed lower.
- Walmart generates 14% of PepsiCo’s total revenue, giving it enormous leverage over the supplier.
- The Trump administration dropped the lawsuit in May 2025, but the recently unsealed documents are fueling public outrage and congressional calls for action.
What the Lawsuit Actually Says
The FTC filed its case against PepsiCo in January 2025 under the Robinson-Patman Act, a Depression-era law that prohibits suppliers from offering preferential pricing terms to favored customers when doing so harms competition. In the original filing, the identity of the favored retailer was redacted. When the documents were unsealed late last year, the name was revealed: Walmart.
According to the complaint, PepsiCo didn’t just quietly discount Pepsi products for Walmart. It went further — the company allegedly launched a coordinated campaign against Food Lion, one of its other retail customers, specifically to protect Walmart’s price advantage. That campaign included reducing Food Lion’s promotional spending and raising its wholesale costs. The effect was that Food Lion had to charge its customers more for Pepsi while Walmart charged less. Pepsi, in effect, became a retail price cop — monitoring what competitors charged and taking action when their prices got too close to Walmart’s.
So Why Is Walmart at Fault?
This is the part that gets interesting. Walmart wasn’t named as a defendant in the FTC lawsuit — PepsiCo was. But Walmart is PepsiCo’s single largest customer, accounting for 14% of the company’s consolidated net revenue. PepsiCo has stated publicly that losing Walmart’s business would have a “material adverse effect” on its financial performance. That kind of dependency gives Walmart extraordinary leverage — and critics argue that the alleged arrangement could not have existed without Walmart’s knowing participation or at least tacit approval.
The Robinson-Patman Act targets the supplier side of the equation. But the broader antitrust principle is that the retailer powerful enough to demand and benefit from preferential treatment is also a driver of the distortion. For smaller grocery chains that were quietly priced out of a competitive position on a product category they had no control over, the harm is real, and it traces back to the size and market power of their larger competitor.
What Happened to the Case — and What Comes Next
The Trump administration’s FTC dismissed the lawsuit in May 2025, a move that drew criticism from consumer advocates and some members of Congress. More Perfect Union’s viral video, which focuses on the unsealed details of the original complaint, suggests that public interest in the issue hasn’t gone away. In fact, several U.S. senators recently wrote to the FTC and Department of Justice asking them to crack down on pricing practices that harm small and mid-sized grocery businesses.
Whether any new enforcement action follows remains to be seen. But the disclosure of Walmart’s name in the unsealed lawsuit has given the story new life — and given the Robinson-Patman Act, long considered dormant, a moment back in the spotlight.
Sources: Grocery Dive, FTC.gov, More Perfect Union (YouTube)
