Fourteen Days of Letting the Kroger Algorithm Dress Me, Feed Me, and Define My Soul
Photo: Grandmaster Huon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Let me be upfront: I have betrayed myself for content before, but never like this. For fourteen days, I agreed to buy only what my grocery store's loyalty program suggested — the personalized deals, the 'recommended for you' tags, the coupons that print out at the register like tiny, judgmental horoscopes. If the algorithm said kale, I ate kale. If the algorithm said 'you might like pickle-brined hot dogs,' I became, briefly, a person who might like pickle-brined hot dogs.
The rules were simple. Everything I purchased had to be algorithmically suggested — a coupon, an app recommendation, or one of those little orange 'buy again' tags. No exceptions. No free will. My wife was allowed to intervene only in the event of actual danger.
Day One Through Four: The Honeymoon
The algorithm, it turns out, starts polite. Week one's recommendations were a flattering mirror of my usual cart: the same sad romaine, the same store-brand seltzer, the same rotisserie chicken that constitutes 40% of my personality. It felt less like an experiment and more like a shopping trip with a friend who knows me a little too well.
Then the hummus started.
Day Five Through Nine: The Hummus Era
I don't know what data point triggered it. Maybe a single tub of classic hummus I bought in March. Whatever the cause, the algorithm decided hummus was my entire identity and began recommending a new variety every visit: roasted red pepper. Garlic. Jalapeño. 'Everything bagel' flavored, which I want studied. By day nine, my refrigerator looked like a Mediterranean peace summit and I had, without noticing, developed a ranked preference among them. I had opinions. I had takes. I caught myself telling a coworker that the olive tapenade variety was 'overrated but structurally important to the lineup.'
That's when it got unsettling. I wasn't just buying the hummus. The hummus was buying me.
The Identity Crisis Portion of the Program
Here's the thing they don't put on the loyalty card sign-up sheet: these systems don't just predict your behavior. They shape it. Behavioral scientists call it a feedback loop — you buy the suggested item, the algorithm logs your purchase as a preference, and it suggests more of the same. Your past self becomes a cage your future self shops inside.
By day eleven, the app was recommending 'your favorites!' that I had never once chosen freely. It had promoted a canned soup I bought once, in a fever haze, in 2022, to 'frequent purchase' status. The algorithm didn't just know me. It had edited me, quietly, one orange tag at a time.
And look — I ate the soup. That's the part that should worry both of us.
The Final Ranking: Weirdest Personalized Coupons, Tiered
The experiment produced fourteen days of meals and a stack of register coupons that read like messages from an alien studying humanity. Ranked, as is tradition:
S Tier — Deeply Personal, Borderly Rude: A coupon for single-serving chocolate cake, printed the day after I bought a family-size bag of chips and a magazine about feelings. The machine knows.
A Tier — Intriguing: '25% off artisanal sauerkraut.' I have never purchased sauerkraut. I have never spoken about sauerkraut. But the coupon felt like an invitation to a new life, and I used it.
B Tier — Confused But Trying: Buy-one-get-one on dental floss and, inexplicably, a children's pool float. I do not have children. I do not have a pool. But the confidence was admirable.
C Tier — Algorithm on Autopilot: Cat treats. I am allergic to cats. Somewhere in the data, a cat exists that isn't mine, and I'd like to know about it.
F Tier — Existential Threat: A coupon for 'senior discount vitamins,' printed for a 34-year-old. I framed it. My wife hung it in the hallway.
What I Learned, and What I Bought on Day Fifteen
On the final morning, I walked into the store without the app and bought a lemon, some eggs, and one single, defiant tub of classic hummus — the original, the pure form. It tasted like freedom, or possibly like chickpeas.
The lesson isn't 'algorithms bad.' Honestly, the algorithm saved me money and introduced me to a jalapeño hummus I now genuinely love. The lesson is that the profile it builds of you isn't a mirror — it's a funhouse mirror that slowly becomes the blueprint. Every orange tag is a tiny suggestion about who you are.
Sometimes it's right. Sometimes it hands you artisanal sauerkraut and a strange new destiny. But it's worth knowing, next time the register spits out a coupon, exactly whose idea 'you' is.
