General Discussion

Foodstuffs are, of course, susceptible to price gouging because of oligopolies at various stages and because of the inherent rather inelastic demand of food at large. Everyone has to buy something to eat.

I do not think there is an artificial price fixing which will be relieved just before the midterms as you have posited. Public sentiment (i.e. anger at incumbents for the state of everything economic) doesn't change rapidly enough for that to be a viable plan. It would take more than a handful of less painful grocery trips to change how people have been feeling for well over a year at that point.