A Boring Dystopia

First, I'd argue this was doing business in bad faith - they took advantage of a crisis to jack up profit on staple foods. That's extremely unethical

Second, they effectively did collude. McKinley is a consultant hired by Kroger (which owns many different regional chains) as well as their largest competitors and suppliers. They coordinated the price gouging - it doesn't matter if an algorithm does it or a third party does it, it's still collusion. Adding a degree of separation doesn't change the nature of the act