Exclusive | Grocers ‘outraged’ after Whoopi Goldberg calls them ‘pigs’ over food inflation on ‘The View’

Grocery store owners applauded after Whoopi Goldberg on ABC’s “The View” called them “pigs” over food inflation — and raised concerns that name-calling could expose store owners to further violence, The Post has learned .

The comedian claimed “the people who own groceries are pigs” as she blamed them for rising supermarket prices on Thursday’s show – a day after Donald Trump won the presidential election by slamming inflation in his campaign.

“Your pocketbook is bad, not because the Bidens did anything. Not because the economy is bad. Your grocery bills are what they are because the people who own the groceries are pigs,” Goldberg said on the popular program.

The National Grocers Association, which represents more than 21,000 stores nationwide, also objected in a letter to Brian Teta, executive producer of “The View,” obtained by The Post.

“We are deeply troubled by these remarks … referring to people who own grocery stores as ‘pigs,'” according to the letter from NGA chief executive Greg Ferrara.

Grocery stores operate on “thin” profit margins of between 1% and 2% and are misunderstood as the cause of food inflation – including by people who are spurred on by this rhetoric to commit “violent” crimes against retail workers, the group said. merchant. .

“Statements falsely portraying grocers as ‘disruptive’ not only exacerbate these tensions, but also risk further harm to these frontline workers who have continued to serve the public during challenging times,” according to paper.

Food inflation is the result of “broader economic issues,” including rising labor costs, Ferrara wrote.

ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We are completely outraged by the comments,” Zulema Wiscovitch, who owns two Associated stores in Rosedale, Queens, and Brownsville, Brooklyn, and is co-president of Associated Supermarket Group, told The Post.

A video of Golberg’s comment went viral in the grocery community, Wiscovitch said, with many angry that family-owned businesses are being targeted by a celebrity who is inciting “hate” against their employees.

“The manufacturers are paying higher prices than the manufacturers,” Wiscovitch said.

“It shows a lack of understanding of what’s going on with the economy,” she added. “For us to receive this kind of attack from a public figure is completely unacceptable.”