As grocery costs soared, John Sununu profited

Large holdings of stock in food and retail giants brought financial gains for GOP Senate Candidate John Sununu as Tariffs raised prices across the board.

As New Hampshire families faced ever-increasing grocery prices over the last year, Republican USSenate candidate John Sununu was publicly backing key pieces of President Donald Trump’s economic agenda while also collecting personal investments in some of the major corporations at the center of the country’s food and retail economy.

According to Sununu’s 2025 personal financial disclosure, he reported holding between $30,002 and $100,000 in PepsiCo and Coca-Cola stock and between $65,002 and $150,000 in Walmart stock. The filing also reported dividend and other income from those holdings.

With PepsiCo up about 4%, Coca-Cola up 21%, and Walmart up 34% during Trump’s first year back in office, Sununu’s holdings in those companies could have risen in value by nearly $50,000, excluding dividends.

Those disclosures land alongside Sununu’s public support for making Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cuts permanent and his defense of Trump’s tariff policy, even as national data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows food prices rising and major retailers acknowledge tariff-related price pressure.

In a March 1 interview on WMUR’s CloseUp, Sununu responded to a court ruling striking down some Trump tariffs by saying that while the section of law at issue did not mention taxes or tariffs, “several other sections” still give a president authority to impose tariffs.

The mishandling of the economy and inflation have been devastating for consumers and led to the lowest economic approval numbers for Trump of any modern president.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said food prices rose 3.1% from December 2024 to December 2025, including a 2.4% increase in prices for food at home. The Joint Economic Committee minority said in January that a typical American family paid $310 more for groceries in 2025 than in 2024.

Walmart, one of the companies where Sununu reported owning stock, directly linked some of those price pressures to tariffs. In its February 2026 earnings call transcript, the company said it had worked to mitigate grocery inflation “as tariff-related costs lifted prices across many categories.” Walmart executives also warned in 2025, in reporting by CNBC, that tariffs were expected to push up prices on some grocery items, including bananas, avocados, and coffee.

And Sununu’s alignment with Trump’s economic program extends beyond tariffs.

Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanently cut the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and the 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” retained that 21% corporate rate.

That matters in the food sector because large consumer-goods corporations were among the top beneficiaries of those lower rates.

The Guardian reported that major consumer brands spent heavily on stock buybacks after the Trump tax cuts, while critics argued the tax savings did not translate into meaningful relief for consumers facing higher prices.

Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pennsylvania) pressed Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and General Mills in a 2024 letter reported by Tax Notes over what they described as “shrinkflation,” accusing the companies of reducing package sizes while charging consumers more per unit.

PepsiCo also drew federal scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission sued the company in January 2025, alleging illegal price discrimination favoring a large big-box retailer. The agency later dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning the suit was dropped without a final resolution on its merits.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” also made major cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, a program that helps tens of thousands of Granite Staters buy food. The Urban Institute said the law cut $186 billion from SNAP, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has since issued implementation guidance for the law’s SNAP changes.

In New Hampshire, the stakes are significant. A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities fact sheet said SNAP helped 76,900 New Hampshire residents in federal fiscal year 2024. Anti-hunger and food-bank groups have warned the new federal cost shifts could force the state to absorb tens of millions of dollars in new SNAP costs in coming years.

Sununu, meanwhile, has praised the 2025 Republican budget law, calling it part of the “successes that have been made in Washington” under Trump and slammed his would-be opponent in the 2026 Senate race for opposing it.

“Chris Pappas may be against that, but, you know, I’m certainly not.”